BASEBALL: Jefferson County sweeps East Laurens in final two games Friday

East Laurens dropped the final two games of its second region series last Friday to Jefferson County, which swept a doubleheader in East Dublin with wins of 15-5 and 14-5 to deny the Falcons’ continuing bid for their first region win. 

The Warriors, improving to 4-6 in 2-High A with Tuesday’s narrow win at Dublin, now have a stranglehold on the region’s last playoff spot at fourth in the region standings. 

East Laurens (3-16, 0-7) was railroaded 25-3 in game 1 of its series with Bleckley County on Tuesday. The final two are set to be played in Cochran on Friday. 

The Falcons, in their fourth consecutive region matchup, grabbed a lead early in Friday’s first game, and jumped in front two other times after Jefferson County broke back to tie in a ping-pong match of scoring that lasted through the fourth. 

East got a run right off the bat in the first on the RBI single of Rylan Harden to go up 1-0. Jefferson County would answer to tie it in the top of the third, before East scored a pair in its half of the same inning. Hits by Cade Oliver, Conner Lawrence and Konner O’Neal loaded the bases ahead of a Harden RBI single and a Landon Ayers sac fly to put the Falcons on top again, by a count of 3-1. 

But back came the Warriors with two in the top of four to even it. In the bottom of the inning, Lawrence worked his way in to score from second, after reaching on a leadoff walk and moving up on a Kaden Mimbs single, to again push East Laurens in front, 4-3. 

But six runs by the Warriors in the fifth would erase the Falcons’ last lead, and another six-spot in the sixth their chances of remaining in the game. 

East scratched out one final run in the bottom of the sixth, but came short of the one more that would have forced the game into a seventh inning. 

Jefferson County would finish the afternoon with 11 hits, and took advantage of two Falcon errors and 10 walks by a pair of Eastside pitchers. 

Lawrence, who gave up seven hits and eight earned runs, walked five and struck out six, made the start and pitched through two outs of the fifth inning. Oliver was his relief for an inning and one third. His line included four hits, five earned runs, five walks and two strikeouts. 

The Falcons were led by the three hits and two RBIs of Harden, plus the two each by Lawrence and Mimbs. Ayers also drove in two runs. 

Oliver, O’Neal, Logan Gibson and Cameron Wiggins also had one each of the 11 hits total for the Black and Gold. 

Jefferson County pitchers Trey Davis, Caleb Dukes and Chevy Farmer combined to strike out five, hit two and walk three. 

East Laurens runners stole four bases. 

Game 2 went all seven, though this time the Falcons were playing catch-up the whole way after giving up a couple of Jefferson County runs in the first. 

They’d get one of their own off of the Warriors’ Jayden Duncan in the bottom half thanks to a Mimbs single followed by O’Neal’s RBI double, but were without another until the Warriors were able to double their total with two in the top of the third. 

East got one back in the third on an O’Neal sacrifice fly, but the gap grew by five in the Jefferson County before the next Falcon set of at-bats, and nine before they’d push across another handful of runs in the bottom of the fifth. 

Kaden Mimbs, whose single helped along the third-inning run, added a third hit of the night to drive in Lawrence (who’d reached on a leadoff double) for the first of three in the inning, a second was chased home to extend the game to the sixth on an RBI single from Harden, who advanced all the way to third and scored on a passed ball, cutting the deficit to 13-5. 

From there, Jefferson County picked up only one more in the top of the seventh. 

Again, East Laurens mirrored the Warriors’ hit tally with nine. The Falcons suffered two errors in the field. 

Mimbs’ 3-for-4 line included one RBI. Lawrence had two hits, and Ayers, Harden, O’Neal (with two RBIs) and Adam Francis one each. 

Jefferson County’s series of pitchers struck out 10, walked three. 

O’Neal took the loss for the Falcons on the hill, in three innings and a portion of the fourth. His line included seven hits, nine earned runs, four walks and six strikeouts. 

Harden and Mimbs both worked in relief. Harden gave up one earned run, and Mimbs four unearned. They combined to walk seven and strike out four.