After a hectic start to Wednesday’s District 1-2A Baseball Tournament West Greene settled in quickly and pulled off the upset of Chuckey-Doak.
Heavy rain in Lower Afton just before the scheduled first pitch forced the game to be moved to the friendly confines of “The Buddy” at the last minute. The Buffaloes were able to overcome the new start time and new location. They showed no drop off in emotion from a walk-off win the night prior, and they captured a 5-0 win over their cross-county rivals who swept them during the regular season.
“It was a wild day with how everything transpired, but I’m glad to come out with a win at the end of the night,” West Greene coach Adrian Sauceman said.
West Greene will now get a much-needed day off and will turn its attention to Unicoi County on Friday in the winner’s bracket finals. The Buffs need one more win in the double-elimination tournament to advance to the Region 1-2A Tournament.
“We’re one win away now,” Sauceman said. “It’s big to get a day off because we did play on Monday, and we aren’t really used to playing that many days in a row. We’ll rest a little bit and get back to it on Friday. We just have to come back and play our game. When we went up (to Unicoi County) early in the season, we booted the ball around and gave them some runs. Then I think we got intimidated when we got down. The next day, down here, it was 3-2 in the seventh inning. We have to take away the lessons from that just come back and play baseball.”
For Chuckey-Doak the path to the region gets more difficult and it will have to beat Johnson County on Thursday in Elizabethton. First pitch is scheduled for 5 PM.
Jayden Cox led the Buffaloes’ shutout effort from the mound. He threw six innings with seven strikeouts, three walks and four hits allowed. The Black Knights put him in a few tough spots, but every time Cox was able to escape the threat unscathed.
“Jayden had three innings where he kept the pitch count really low, and he had three where the pitch count ballooned up. I liked those first three better. But some of that is because that is good offensive team over there. He was able to Houdini his way out of some tough spots, and that was huge,” Sauceman said.
After packing up their equipment and traveling from Chuckey-Doak to Hal “Buddy” Pruitt Field, the Buffaloes arrived ready to attack. Jhonen Bath started a big first inning by launching the game’s first pitch deep into right field for a double.
Chuckey-Doak was able to sit down the next two batters but then Brandon Hunter smacked a run-scoring single into right field that gave West Greene a lead it would never relinquish.
Julian Greenlee landed another single and Aidan Willett walked to load the bases. Bronson Brown stepped in the box next and pushed the lead to 3-0 when he got a line drive to fall into shallow centerfield.
“That was a very mature response from the boys. I wish could say I had some ra-ra speech to get them going, but it was just them,” Sauceman said. “Jhonen came out and smacked a double on the first pitch to get us going. That put them behind eight ball right away, and that is huge against a good team. Being able to play from in front against a good team helps out a lot.”
Chuckey-Doak was able to load the bases in both the second and third innings and both times the Buffaloes were able to end the threat with the runners stranded. In the third inning Cox was able to first work a three-pitch strikeout, and then centerfielder Ethan Carpenter closed things out by going to his knees to rob Lynkin Cutshaw of a hit.
West Greene was able to add to its advantage in the fifth inning. Bath started the side with a single to left field, but was eliminated trying to go from first to third on a bunt single by Cox.
Cox stole second and scored when Hunter sent a line drive straight up the middle. The throw to try to catch Cox at the plate got away from the defense and allowed Hunter to reach third. He went on to score on a wild pitch to push the Buffaloes’ lead to 5-0.
Chuckey-Doak’s last chance to score came in the sixth inning. Benjamin Palazzo led off the side by sending a line drive into left field. Crum followed by launching a double into the deepest part of center field.
Cutshaw followed with a line drive to right field, but Christian Hunter made a tough catch and then doubled-off Crum at second. Cox struck out the next batter to end the inning.
The Buffaloes produced eight hits on Wednesday. Greenlee was 2-for-3 with a double. Bath went 2-for-4 with a double, and Hunter was 2-for-4 with two RBIs. Brown also had two RBIs for West Greene.
Chuckey-Doak was held to four hits. Crum had a double while Palazzo, Randall Sauceman and Dom Atchison each had a single.
Crum took the loss for the Black Knights. In 4 1/3 innings he struck out five, walked one and allowed seven hits.
