After trailing by four runs late in the contest the West Greene Buffaloes mounted a comeback over county foe South Greene on Tuesday night in the District 1-2A Tournament, collecting a 6-5 walk-off win in the tournament opener at Hal “Buddy” Pruitt Field in Mosheim.
It wasn’t pretty and it took every bit of effort and grit West Greene had. Five errors were costly and put West Greene in many bad situations and helped South Greene gain control of the momentum. South Greene did a terrific job at taking advantage of West Greene’s errors with timely hitting in big spots. The Buffaloes saw an opportunity in the sixth inning and took advantage of that opportunity by tying the game 5-5 heading into the seventh.
The Rebels stranded a runner in the top half of the seventh inning and West Greene had the opportunity to walk it off. The odds weren’t in West Greene’s favor again deep into eventual hero Ethan Carpenter’s at bat. Carpenter stepped into the box with two outs and was down 0-2 after two quick strikes. On the next pitch from Cameron Kinser his timing was near perfect with a ground ball straight through the middle infield that set up a play at the plate for the game. South Greene centerfielder Zack Mason fired a dart to the dish and Seth Julian slid across the plate in time to beat the throw and deliver the Buffaloes a victory
“I just knew I had to swing the bat and hit the ball and trust my teammates to run no matter what,” Carpenter explained.
You never know what to expect in the postseason and Tuesday’s game was a perfect example of that. Chuckey-Doak was waiting in the wings to find out who they would host on Wednesday. West Greene’s win set up a date with the Black Knights in the winner’s bracket. South Greene falls to the loser’s bracket and will play Happy Valley in a win-or-go-home game on Thursday.
When asked how West Greene was able to get it done, coach Adrian Sauceman was pretty short. “I don’t know.”
Sauceman continued by speaking about the defensive struggles on the field. “Worst defensively we’ve played in a pretty long time. We couldn’t make a play in the infield to save our lives for a while.”
West Greene committed five errors and South Greene turned in a clean sheet with zero. Both teams had six hits each. Each team only struck out once. While West Greene committed five errors, they also drew five walks and five hit by pitches to help make up for their mistakes. South Greene only drew one walk and one hit by pitch.
The Buffaloes had six different players account for the six hits. Six different players also accounted for all six runs. Brandon Hunter relieved Bronson Brown after Brown pitched 3.2 innings. Hunter helped shut South Greene down the rest of the way. He threw 3.1 innings with one hit and one walk and allowed one earned run. Brown started and threw 3.2 innings and gave up five hits and no earned runs.
“Pitching was good enough to keep us in it. Bronson ended up giving up 3 runs but he threw it pretty well. Filled up the zone and that’s what he does. Brandon came in and that was huge for him. Came in and stopped the bleeding a little bit,” Sauceman said.
South Greene’s production came from the top of the lineup with Cameron Kinser and Colton Fillers delivering two hits each. Kinser went 2-for-4 with a run and a double. Fillers went 2-for-3 with a walk. Cayden Fillers also went 1-for-3 with an RBI.
Kinser and Fillers started with back-to-back singles in the first inning, but were left stranded. Jhonen Bath also walked to begin the first for West Greene, but was also left stranded. The game remained calm as neither team put a runner in scoring position in the second or third innings.
The Rebels opened everybody’s eyes with a three-run fourth inning. Colten Fillers led off with a single and Eli Fillers reached on an error by the Buffs and both runners went to second and third on the error. Christian Darnell popped up, but another Buffalo error helped South Greene score its first run. Courtesy runner Wyatt Fender scored on the play. Dawson Ripley laid down a sacrifice bunt next and scored Eli Fillers. Colton Fillers delivered an RBI-single next and scored Darnell. Three-straight plate appearances produced three runs as South Greene led 3-0 in the middle of the fourth.
The lead grew to 4-0 in the fifth with Christian Darnell’s RBI groundout scoring Cameron Kinser. West Greene tacked on their first run in the fifth with Jayden Cox’s RBI-single to score Ethan Carpenter. South Greene led 4-1 after five.
The Rebels scored for the third-straight inning with a two-out error committed by West Greene. South Greene led 5-1 in the middle of the sixth.
West Greene had six outs to play with and four runs to make up for. The sixth inning changed everything for them.
Brandon Hunter singled to lead off the inning, Julian Greenlee walked, and Aiden Willett singled to load the bases with no outs. Hunter was thrown out at home on a fielder’s choice play, but it didn’t halt their momentum. Christian Hunter delivered a huge two-RBI single to right field, scoring Greenlee and Willett to make it 5-3.
Carpenter was hit by a pitch to load the bases again with one out. Bath hit into a fielder’s choice, but did enough to score a run and traded it for an out. Cox walked to load the bases for the third time in the inning. Carter Stills was hit by a pitch on the first pitch he saw in the plate appearance and Hunter scored the game-tying run. Brandon Hunter ended the inning with a barreled up shot to shortstop that would’ve broke the game wide open, but was caught by Dawson Ripley.
The Buffs had a chance to end the game in the seventh after forcing South Greene to leave a runner stranded at second. Willett was hit by a pitch and hopped on first base with one out. Willett was replaced with pinch runner Seth Julian. A Brown single moved Julian into scoring position. Two batters later Carpenter stepped to the plate with two outs and delivered the game-winning hit to send Julian home and win the game for West Greene.
“As soon as it was hit through the middle, I was praying that Seth knew to run. I knew that Seth was fast enough, he’s a really fast kid, but it was close. I’m glad he was safe,” Carpenter mentioned.
The Buffs walked off the Rebels for a 6-5 victory.
West Greene advances to play Chuckey-Doak in Lower Afton on Wednesday at 5:30. South Greene drops into the loser’s bracket to play Happy Valley on Thursday at 7:30 in Elizabethton.
Coach Sauceman explained what the mindset is going into the matchup with Chuckey-Doak.
“Go win. This time a year that’s all you think about. Just go win.”
