Garrett Manning (2) throws a pitch during Scotland’s victory over Lumberton in the Robeson County Slugfest on Monday morning at Fairmont High School. Manning pitched all seven innings and had eight strikeouts.
Andrew Smolar | The Laurinburg Exchange
Baseball and softball wrapped up tournament on Tuesday
Ayden Odom steals second base. Odom scored a run in Scotland’s win.
Andrew Smolar | The Laurinburg Exchange
Robbie Peed puts the ball in play. Peed went 1-4 batting in Monday’s win.
Andrew Smolar | The Laurinburg Exchange
Blane Callahan (9) catches a throw at first base to get a force out. Callahan went 2-3 batting with an RBI and a run scored in the Scotland victory.
Andrew Smolar | The Laurinburg Exchange
FAIRMONT —The Scotland baseball team used a four-run seventh inning to rally for a 5-3 victory over the Lumberton Pirates in a Robeson County Slugfest contest on Monday morning at Fairmont High School. The Scots snap a two-game losing streak with the victory after falling in their regular season finale to Richmond on Thursday night at McCoy Field as well as in Saturday’s tournament opener to Red Springs.
Head Coach Ricky Schattauer was pleased with the fight his team showed late in the contest after Saturday’s rough loss to Red Springs and rough start to Monday’s contest. Scotland’s ability to rally and earn another game on Tuesday was something he liked to see as things looked bleak for the majority of the game.
“We finally found some barrels, we kind of lacked it on Saturday and lacked it the first six innings of today’s game,” Schattauer said. “We found some there in the seventh and came back.”
After two scoreless innings with just one hit (a single from Robbie Peed in the top of the first), the Pirates would grab three runs in their half of the third frame despite only getting one hit in the inning. Shaun Henderson would draw a leadoff walk and advance to third thanks to a sacrifice bunt from Jayden Graham and a single from Landon Claar.
Brennan Griffin then hit a grounder that resulted in a Scotland fielding error and allowed Henderson to score while advancing Claar to third. Claar would then reach home on a ball not in play while Griffin scored on an RBI groundout from Brody Stueck.
The Scots were able to get a run back in the top of the fourth inning. Garrett Manning would reach base safely on a one-out double before scoring on an RBI single from Blane Callahan that made it 3-1.
After two more scoreless frames in the fifth and sixth innings, Scotland would get to work in the top of the seventh, starting with a leadoff single from Callahan and a one-out single from Jayden Bryant that advanced Callahan to third (Callahan stole second). Callahan would then score on a non-live ball while Bryant would advance to second and third with Dylan Tilson drawing a walk to make it 3-2. A two-RBI single from Connor Sessoms would give Scotland a 4-3 lead before Ayden Odom (pinch runner for Sessoms) would add onto their advantage with a steal of home.
Lumberton would have the tying run on base in their half of the seventh thanks to a leadoff single from Rodney Jacobs and Nolan Groner getting hit by a pitch with two outs. The Pirates couldn’t get any runs across however as the Scots would hang on for the victory.
Sessoms led the Scots in RBIs with two thanks to his single in the seventh inning. Callahan went 2-3 from the plate with an RBI and a run scored. Dawson Williams, Robbie Peed, Manning, Bryant and Tilson each had one hit with the Scots outhitting Lumberton 8-4.
Manning pitched all seven innings and allowed three runs (all unearned) with eight strikeouts against two walks. He threw 97 pitches (65 strikes) to the 29 batters he faced.
Scotland advances to the fifth-place game of the tournament on Tuesday afternoon against Purnell Swett at 1 p.m. from Fairmont High School. The Scots lost their matchup with the Rams this season back on Feb. 27 at McCoy Field in a 5-o final.
Tuesday’s contest will be Scotland’s last before they begin their conference tournament next week. Schattauer views every contest as a playoff game for the Scots at this point in the season as they look to stack as many wins as possible to give themselves the best possible look at the playoffs when the time comes around.
“I told them after Saturday’s game that every game now is playoffs,” Schattauer said. “We have to win as many games as we can so we can get a good seed into the playoffs.”