Clover baseball splits two in opening day of Wheels tournament

Northwestern didn’t give Clover any freebies in a 7-2 win Wednesday night on the first day of the Wheels Invitational baseball tournament.

Senior Fuller Wilson started on the mound for the Trojans and went the distance, allowing just five hits and only one walk. The defense behind him made an error on Clover’s first at-bat but was perfect the rest of the way. Wilson throwing the ball over the plate was key to the whole enterprise.

“Fuller pitched great tonight,” said Northwestern coach Mitch Walters, who started nine seniors against Clover, an irregular occurrence. “Throwing strikes was the main thing, and that’s been our problem all year, walks.”

It wasn’t a bad day for Clover (8-6), though. Hank Wofford’s team opened the tournament in glorious 4 p.m. sunshine with an 8-2 over Faith Baptist (Ga.). But where the Georgia team made some mistakes defensively, Northwestern (8-4) did not surrender free bases to the Blue Eagles.

“Their defense made a ton of plays,” said Wofford. “We’re a club that can run and we’ve got to hit some ground balls, and we did, but they just happened to make all the plays tonight.”

Jimmy Marcelli’s RBI double in the bottom half of the same inning halved the Trojans’ lead, but that was Wilson’s last trouble for several innings. He gave up his only walk to Stanley Durkin in the bottom of the fourth, and Landon Harkey followed with an RBI missile that went for two bases to make it 3-2. But Wilson calmed down again and pitched a perfect fifth and sixth. Two late insurance runs via RBI hits from Taylor and Weston King from the Trojans meant Wilson never really had to sweat.

The Trojans play General McLane on Thursday at 7 p.m., while Clover is off until Friday, when it plays General McLane at 1 p.m.

Clover 8, Faith Baptist (Ga.) 2: Clover won the early game at Northwestern, with starting pitcher Justin Adams shutting out the visitors from Georgia in his six innings of work.

Adams allowed just four hits and struck out five Faith Baptist batters. The Crusaders (6-3) broke the shutout with two late runs, but a serious rally never materialized.

“Justin Adams did a fantastic job keeping them off balance,” said Wofford. “They were hunting fastballs and he kept throwing them breaking balls and the changeup. I was very impressed with his performance.”

Hank Wofford’s Blue Eagles posted four runs in the second and three in the sixth to crack open the contest. Cody Payne’s two-run double in the second and Cole Hybarger’s RBI double in the sixth did the most damage.

This story was originally published April 1, 2015 at 9:22 PM with the headline "Clover baseball splits two in opening day of Wheels tournament."