BASEBALL: Sweep of Howard, heartbreaker at Bleckley for West Laurens in busy three-game stretch

Two more 4-AAA wins fit around another tough non-region loss for West Laurens as it swept its latest region set with Howard last Tuesday and Thursday, but dropped an exciting back-and-forth affair with Bleckley County Wednesday night in Cochran. 

The Raiders shut out the Huskies 10-0 to start the three-day stretch before running into some first inning difficulties they couldn’t overcome in a fourth-straight loss to the Royals, 9-7. But they’d circle back to run-rule Howard for a second time in five more innings, 15-4, to wrap up the week. 

West Laurens began a key region series on the road this past Tuesday night at Harlem, and will host the defending champion Bulldogs Thursday for a finale that’s likely to swing the league’s title race for a second-straight year. 

The Raiders (14-5, 10-0 region 4-AAA) didn’t have a huge inning, but piled on the runs steadily with installments of twos and threes in four out of five innings as they compiled 14 hits in last week’s trip to Macon. 

J.D. Hogan was 3-for-4 to lead the Westside lineup, while Nathan Hester (with four RBIs), Grant Baker, Tripp Mascaro and J.J. Giles had two hits each. 

Gunner Coleman allowed only two hits in five innings of scoreless ball, walking none and striking out five. 

Hogan would be 3-for-3 with just more than a quarter of the team’s 11 hits in Thursday’s victory. 

Though the scoring followed Tuesday’s measured pace, West Laurens quickened the ending after chasing Howard starting pitcher Eduardo Leiva from the game after three innings. 

The Raiders posted four runs each on a total of six hits, plus an error, in the first couple innings, with RBI swings by Tripp Mascaro, Grant Baker, Kolby Clark and Cohen Cardwell strewn throughout. Hogan’s RBI single fit into a two-run third that got the West Laurens lead back to eight, 10-2, after a Howard two-spot in the second courtesy of an RBI by Leiva (who had two of the Huskies’ six hits) kept the game momentarily competitive. But a five-run fourth would put it completely out of reach. 

Clark, who struck out five with no walks and only three hits given up in three innings, helped his winning cause with two hits at the plate. Mascaro relieved him for the final two innings, and yielded three more hits, two unearned runs and two walks with three strikeouts. 

Bleckley County, which will be bidding on its seventh region 2-High A championship in a row over the season’s last two and a half weeks, handed West Laurens an unheard-of fourth-straight regular season loss in the teams’ extensive rivalry as it hung on to the last two runs in a couple of early six-run advantages to the end of Wednesday’s wild rollercoaster ride. 

Both teams had some back-and-forth, in both a literal and figurative sense, as things got uncharacteristically heated during some tense innings down the stretch of a game as exciting as the two have played in some time. 

But the outcome all came back to a rough first inning for the Raiders, in which Bleckley whacked six hits to put up six runs and make a big early dent on the scoreboard. 

Two-run singles by Lane Sapp and J.D. Holloway were the biggest swings of the bunch, though Walker Boatright, Brody Fleming and Jay Johnson also added hits to the effort that had West Laurens reeling a bit in search of an elusive third out that didn’t come until the end of 11 at-bats. 

However the Raiders, with Cardwell as their starting pitcher recovering for an orderly second and third, would regain the footing as the evening progressed, and put together a solid third inning – highlighted by RBIs from Baker and Mascaro – to halve the lead. 

Bleckley got all three runs back in the fourth as many of the above joined in rattling off five base knocks to force a pitching change. Brycen Milton took over and picked off his fifth and sixth runners of the season, while walking two and striking out three the rest of the way. 

The Royals wouldn’t score in either of the two remaining frames. 

West Laurens came back to cut the lead to two in a four-run fifth, bringing nine to the plate and cashing in three walks and a hit batter by Bleckley’s Brody Woodard, who was a second man out of the Purple and Gold ‘pen behind starter Gavin Cole, who struck out three and walked one with two hits in a pair of innings out of the gate, and Thomas Evans, whom the Raiders jumped on by connecting for two hits and drawing two walks in the big third. 

Jeremiah Baker split the gap for a double to drive in two, and Giles drew a bases-loaded walk, to force the Royals to a fourth pitcher. Johnson came on to get the last two outs, allowing only one more to score in the process. 

He’d punch out the side in the sixth before walking two to load the bases after a leadoff error in the seventh. But a Raider ground ball into a force-out at third would end the threat with a tying run in scoring position. 

Johnson struck out four in his nearly three hitless innings to get the save. 

Boatright, Fleming, Sapp, Cole and Woodard had two hits each, and Sapp drove in three runs for the Royals, who out-hit West Laurens 12-7.