Wheels: Lively bats push Rock Hill baseball past Greenbrier East
For the second straight baseball game, the Rock Hill Bearcats won 9-2 and for the second straight game Wes Bostic was one of the key contributors at the plate.
Bostic was 2-for-3 with an RBI and the Bearcats started the Wheels Invitational tournament with a victory over the Greenbrier East (W.Va.) Spartans on Wednesday night at Rock Hill.
Bryon Foust had a triple to score the first run and Isaac Rodgers went six innings on the mound to get the win. He allowed two unearned runs on five hits and walked none while striking out four, including two of the last three he faced. Grant Willson closed it out in the seventh by retiring the side in order.
“I think this is the fourth ballgame in a row we’ve had 10 or more hits so the bats are finally coming,” Rock Hill coach Dell Corley said. “But we still had to do some extra running tonight because of not sliding, and they’ll do more tomorrow before BP. Plays like that hurt us in our first five games. We’re not going to put up with it.”
After Zach Carter’s leadoff line drive single to start the bottom of the first for Rock Hill, nine straight Bearcats were retired.
Greenbrier had one runner reach in each of the first four innings but failed to push one across. Daniel Oates had a nice diving catch at third base for Rock Hill in the second.
The Bearcats broke through in the fourth with four runs. Caleb Hamilton, who was 3-for-4, led off with a base hit to right field. With one out, Foust tripled to right past the diving right-fielder to score Hamilton and put Rock Hill on top. Immediately after that, a passed ball allowed Foust to score for a 2-0 edge. Rodgers followed with an infield hit and with two outs, the inning was kept alive by a throwing error from the Spartans’ shortstop that allowed Rodgers to score. Collins Bennett finished the inning with an infield hit to the shortstop that brought home Oates and made it 4-0.
The Spartans answered by pushing across their only two runs in the top of the fifth. Hunter Mounts reached to lead off the inning on a throwing error. Pitcher Joey Powell walked and a sacrifice bunt by Tanner McCallister moved both runners into scoring position. A groundout and a Tyler Canterbury single to center plated the two unearned runs.
With the potential tying runs on base and the cleanup man at the plate, Rodgers got Daylon Colley to pop up to end the inning.
The Bearcats put it out of reach with five runs on five hits in the sixth. Six straight batters reached in the inning and Bostic’s second hit scored a run. Zach Carter’s two-out fly to left was lost in the lights for a double that scored two more, and Hamilton’s third hit drove in Carter. Hamilton scored from second on a wild pitch when the catcher could not locate the ball.
“We face a very good team in Faith Baptist so we’ll find out quickly if we’re swinging them well,” Corley said.
Rock Hill will take on reigning Wheels champion Faith Baptist (Fla.) on Thursday at 7 p.m.
This story was originally published April 1, 2015 at 10:18 PM with the headline "Wheels: Lively bats push Rock Hill baseball past Greenbrier East."