Blane Callahan (9) puts the ball in play during Scotland’s victory over Sanderson on Saturday afternoon at McCoy Field. Callahan went 1-2 from the plate and scored two runs while also drawing a walk.
Andrew Smolar | The Laurinburg Exchange
Kaden Hunsucker (1) throws a pitch. Hunsucker pitched three innings as Scotland’s starter and had five strikeouts while only allowing one earned run.
Andrew Smolar | The Laurinburg Exchange
Dawson Williams (7) throws the ball around the infield after catching a popup. Williams went 2-4 batting with two RBIs.
Andrew Smolar | The Laurinburg Exchange
LAURINBURG —The Scotland baseball team defeated the Sanderson Spartans by a score of 12-4 on Saturday afternoon at McCoy Field. Scotland improves to 5-3 on the season with the victory while the Spartans fall to 1-6 with their sixth consecutive loss.
Both teams got runs across in the first inning. Brady Robinson started the top of the first by drawing a walk and then stealing second.
Gaines Stallworth then hit a ground ball and reached safely on a fielding error by Scotland, scoring Robinson in the process. Stallworth would eventually score on a wild pitch to increase the Sanderson lead to 2-0.
Scotland got their run thanks to consecutive doubles from Blane Callahan and Maddox Locklear. After a scoreless second inning, the Spartans would add onto their lead thanks to a solo homer from Robinson to lead off the top of the third and make the score 3-1.
Head Coach Ricky Schattauer wasn’t overly pleased with the sloppy start his team had. Coming off of two losses to Southern Lee this week, Schattauer wanted to focus on eliminating self-inflicted mistakes, which the Scots didn’t do early in Saturday’s contest.
“We preached stopping the bleed and keeping the errors and big innings to a minimum,” Schattauer said. “We gave them two runs in the first inning on zero hits, we had the error and couldn’t get out of the inning, it was a sluggish start.”
The Scots would turn the game around in the home half of the fourth as they scored four runs while sending eight batters to the plate. Locklear and Garrett Manning started the inning with a single and walk respectively before moving over on a sacrifice bunt from Dylan Tilson.
Locklear would score on a passed ball to make it 3-2 while Manning scored on an RBI single from Jayden Bryant to even the game at three. That would be the first of three straight RBI singles for the Scots as Briley Lewis and Dawson Williams each drove in a run to suddenly give Scotland a 5-3 lead.
The Scots would then add to their advantage in their half of the fifth. They would start the inning by loading the bases with zero outs by getting hit by two pitches and drawing a walk.
An RBI groundout from Tilson would increase Scotland’s lead to 6-3. Robbie Peed would then drive in two more runs on a two-RBI single to make the score 8-3. An RBI triple from Lewis and another RBI single from Williams would blow the game open and give Scotland 10 runs, the second time the Scots have scored double digit runs in a game this season.
Scotland would match their season high with two more runs in the bottom of the sixth. Callahan and Locklear would each draw a walk to start the inning and score on a steal of home and an RBI groundout from Peed respectively. Robinson would add another solo homer in the top of the seventh for Sanderson.
The Scots as a team outhit the Spartans 11-2. Williams, Locklear, Peed and Lewis had two hits apiece. Peed led the team in RBIs with three while Williams and Lewis had two each.
Kaden Hunsucker started the game on the mound for Scotland and gave the team three innings of three-run ball (one earned) with five strikeouts against two walks. Peed would relieve him and pitch four innings of one-run ball with six strikeouts against zero walks.
Even with the early runs allowed, Schattauer liked what he saw out of Hunsucker in spurts. He loved what Peed was able to do in his four innings of relief work.
“Robbie has been Robbie,” Schattauer said. “He has shutdown everybody that he has faced, and I couldn’t ask for more from him.”
Scotland will head back on the road for a matchup with Union Pines (3-3 overall and 1-1 in conference games) on Tuesday night. The game is scheduled to start at 7 p.m. The two teams will also meet at McCoy Field on Friday night at 7 p.m.
Schattauer feels like the two losses to Southern Lee are a thing that the Scots can safely put behind them after Saturday’s performance. Schattauer at this stage feels confident in where Scotland is headed as even through some losses the Scots have played well.
“Today turned last week’s page,” Schattauer said. “We’ve been outhitting, outplaying and outpitching every team. If we could just stop the bleed like we didn’t do on Tuesday and Friday, we can finish the season really well, I hope this kickstarts us becoming hot.”