LC Mustangs top Whiteoak in SHAC showdown
MOWRYSTOWN — One day following the clinch of their Division I Southern Hills Athletic Conference championship, the Lynchburg-Clay Mustangs traveled to take on their Highland County rival Whiteoak as rain sporadically fell from the clouds Wednesday night.
Both teams played tough, as the Wildcats were coming off a big win from the previous night as well after defeating Fayetteville, but it was LC who was able to take advantage of walks issued, an error and a couple wild pitches to gain their 10th SHAC win of the season, defeating the host Wildcats, 6-3.
“We battled well, and Whiteoak has a defensively solid team,” LC head coach Garyn Waits said. “They put the ball on the bat tonight, probably a little bit more than what I expected, but defensively I knew they weren’t going to kick the ball around, and pitching I knew they would throw strikes, but we eventually got it going.”
LC had their best inning at the plate in the top of the second, where they plated three runs, beginning with Andrew Reuss reaching first with a single, then taking second and third bases on two wild pitches. The bases were loaded with no outs with walks forced by Kendall Vilvens and Forrest Elam.
Wes Smith followed with a single, and later in the inning, Drew Pitzer took first on a fielder’s choice. Devin Pierson also reached the bases in the inning with a walk. Scoring runs in the inning were Reuss, Vilvens and Elam.
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Reuss led the Mustangs at the plate, finishing 3-for-4 with two runs. Also with multiple hits in the game was Christian Inman at 2-for-4. With one hit for LC was Wes Smith, as he also drew two walks. Also with two walks was Pierson.
Whiteoak responded with one run in the second with Evan Brill crossing home plate, and in the third, WHS cut the Mustangs’ lead to a single run as Trever Yeager scored the second Wildcat run for a 3-2 deficit.
Yeager led the Wildcats at 3-for-4 with two runs. Also with one hit each for WHS were Jacob Burns and Trevor Martin. Evan Brill forced three walks, and Martin had two.
“We left some runners on the bases, but in baseball, that’s going to happen,” WHS head coach Chris Veidt said. “Quite frankly, the past two or three games, we have not been leaving guys on in clutch situations, but you know how hitting is … you aren’t going to get the clutch hit every time.
“That was the difference tonight on the offensive side, but a positive is we forced them to throw 162 pitches, so that shows patience. We battle, and everyone knows that. Trever swung the bat really well.”
LC had an answer for that run by scoring two runs with Smith and Damin Pierson each rounding the bases, as each batter initially reached the base paths with a walk.
In the fifth, the Mustangs added their final run as Reuss scored his second run of the game. The Wildcats also scored their final run in their half of the fifth inning, with Yeager crossing the plate for the second time in the contest.
Smith was the winning pitcher for the Mustangs, while Devin Pierson pitched in relief. The loss went to Chase Carraher of Whiteoak, and pitching in relief was Austin Lewis.
“Wes really battled through,” Waits said. “Once he got settled in, he had a couple commanding innings, but he got up to 100-plus pitches.”
In all, LC forced eight walks, and the Wildcats forced seven walks.
“The defensive side of it is we can’t put guys on base for free, and four of their six runs they scored were from walks,” Veidt said. “In their big three-run second, there were six freebies in that inning given up by us, with three walks, an error and two wild pitches.
“We can’t give up that many walks against a team like them. Austin came in and pitched well for us in a tough spot, and he pitched well. Our kids don’t quit. We just didn’t get the clutch hit we wanted, but you can’t order those up on a menu, but we have been doing a good job of that lately. We had some good at-bats, you can’t fault failure in that type of situation, but they (Lynchburg-Clay) are a good team.”