BLUFF CITY – North Greene struggled to slow down Hampton on Thursday night and suffered a 16-8 loss in Thursday’s District 1-1A Tournament at Sullivan East.
The final score makes it seem like Thursday’s action in Bluff City was a barnburner, but that wasn’t the case. Hampton’s freshman pitcher Colby Clark shut the Huskies down and limited them to only one run in his five innings of work with 10 strikeouts. North Greene trailed 14-1 before it outscored Hampton 7-2 after Clark left the game.
The loss is a rare one for North Greene. The Huskies aren’t accustomed to losing in the first game of the tournament and are sent into the loser’s bracket after Thursday’s loss. That sets them up with Unaka on Saturday followed by another elimination game with the loser of University/Hampton if they were to beat Unaka. The first game is scheduled for noon.
“The last few years we’ve not been in this position. We’ve always been playing on Friday night in the winner’s bracket. I look forward to the challenge for our guys. Some of these guys have played travel baseball and know what it’s like to play on Saturday and know what it takes to succeed. I think we’ll be ready,” Huskies Head Coach Jamey Palmer expressed.
The Huskies dropped to 13-11 overall with the loss.
The first inning wasn’t kind to North Greene as most innings weren’t. Despite turning a double play and needing only one out to escape the inning, Eli Henson mashed a solo home run on the first pitch he saw to quickly hand Hampton a 1-0 lead.
Colby Clark held North Greene in check and faced the minimum in his first three innings and struck out seven batters.
The Bulldogs added another pair of runs in the fourth through an error. An outfield throw was off the mark and got away from the plate and allowed two runners to score. Hampton led 3-0 after four.
The game got away from the Huskies in the fifth inning. Hampton plated six runs and turned the game upside down with a 9-0 lead. A single, double, four-straight singles, a hit by pitch, and a grounder into a double play scored all six runs.
North Greene got one run back in the bottom half with a ground out to first from Colton Suggs that helped Owen Pierce score from third.
Hampton extended their lead to 14-1 in the sixth. A double, error, single, hit by pitch, walk, and double in succession scored five runs without the Huskies recording an out.
Colby Clark exited the game after the fifth and the Huskies started finding more success at the plate. Jaiden Bailey led off with a double followed by an RBI-double from Tyler Britton to score him. Britton scored on Isaac Gaby’s RBI-double next. Gaby scored on a passed ball soon after. Courtesy runner Colton Cutshaw scored the last of four runs with Aiden Halley’s ground out to first. Huskies trailed 14-5.
Hampton added two more in the seventh with Clark’s 2-RBI double.
The Huskies plated three more before the final out was recorded. Wyatt Burns and Jaiden Bailey led off with singles. Tyler Britton scored Burns and Christian Cogdill scored Bailey. Owen Pierce helped score Britton to round out the trio of runs scored.
“I’m proud of our guys for not laying down. They had their best on the mind and he was just raring back and throwing it. But when they switched pitcher’s our mindset was just to put it on the next man and the next thing you know we came back and scored some runs. We could’ve laid down and got run ruled, but we didn’t. I’m proud of our guys for that,” Coach Palmer said.
North Greene plays Unaka at noon on Saturday in an elimination game. If they win, the Huskies play immediately after in another elimination game for a spot in the District 1-1A Championship and the Region 1-1A Tournament.
