Fort Mill baseball ends season on high note

The Fort Mill baseball team ended the season on a high note, despite missing the playoffs.

Fort Mill beat home-school team the Charlotte Stampede 9-2 to finish the season at 9-14. The Jackets were led by Jack Corkery, who improved to 4-0 on the season, going five and a third innings, allowing two runs on six hits, while striking out five. He also went 3-3 with four RBIs in the game.

The Jackets were knocked out of playoff contention with a 3-0 loss to Gaffney earlier in the week. In the game against Gaffney, Fort Mill got just three hits and left three men on base.

“We didn’t put enough pressure on them,” said Jackets’ head coach Brad Mercer.

“When we have had success, we have hit line drives. We have been streaky this year. We have hit the ball well and then we have had games where we couldn’t rally.”

The Jackets pitched well, but the offense sputtered. Logan Stone got the start for Fort Mill and went five innings, allowing four hits and two runs, while walking two and striking out two.

In the top of the first, Gaffney led the inning off with a double and later scored on a Fort Mill error. The Jackets got a hit from Jacob Wood in the bottom half of the inning, but left him standing on second.

Stone pitched well for the next two innings, but then got in trouble in the fourth. After giving up a one-out single, a double from Gaffney would drive in their second run of the game.

Fort Mill got a hit in the second inning, a single from Corkery, but did not get another hit until the sixth inning when Joey Tepper singled.

Fort Mill replaced Stone after five innings with Clay King, who pitched the final two innings. King gave up two hits and a run while striking out two in two innings of work.

This story was originally published April 25, 2016 at 11:45 AM with the headline "Fort Mill baseball ends season on high note."