WINNSBORO – Last week the Griffins suffered a rough 1-13 loss to crosstown foes Richard Winn Academy. The young Fairfield squad kept it close as they searched for their first win against Camden, but rough fifth and seventh innings helped the Bulldogs wrap up an 8-2 victory.
“We’ve got a lot of young young baseball players,” Griffins’ head coach Scotty Dean said. “Whereas last year I think we had a lot of experience. We graduated a lot of guys and we’ve got freshman and sophomores all over the place. Just like anything else, give it a little bit of time and they’ll be fine.”
The Bulldogs’ starting pitcher, Tate Abbott sat the Griffins down in order in the first inning, and he remained hard to hit all game. Abbott got the complete game victory, only allowing three hits and striking out ten.
“That’s a good baseball team we played over there,” Dean said. “Their pitcher was lights out, I think he struck out 10 times. But it’s an improvement from yesterday. Yesterday we struck out 12 times.”
Abbott gave himself some run-support with a sac fly that notched the Bulldogs’ second run of the game. Then in the fourth, the lead expanded to three, courtesy of an RBI-single off the bat of Robert Spring.
The Griffins cut into the lead in the bottom half of the fourth after Taylor Truesdale crossed the plate on an error. Camden put up two more runs in the fifth inning. The Griffins struck back for another run in the bottom half of the inning, but then the offense went silent.
McKenzie Barrineau put the game out of the Griffins’ reach with when he delivered a single that pushed home two more runs.
“Right there at the end, I thought we had an opportunity to put up some runs,” Dean said. “I thought we were going to be able to tie that game up. We’re young, we’re not there yet, but I’m excited about this team.”
Fairfield found a bit of revenge in their rematch with the Bulldogs on Tuesday. Harvey Smith came on in the top of the 8th with bases loaded and flared a 2 RBI-Single over the first baseman’s glove. The huge Smith hit led the Griffins to a 5-3 victory.
FCHS:0-0-0-1-1-0-0-2
CHS:1-0-1-1-2-0-3–8
Pitching: FCHS- Antonio Jackson (L) 4.2 IP, 3H, 5R, 4 ER, 8BB, 4K. Taylor Truesdale, 2.1 IP, 1H, 3R, 3ER, 1BB, 1K. CHS- Tate Abbot (W), CG, 3H, 2R, 0ER, 1HB, 10K.
Hitting: 1B- Taylor Truesdale, Jacob McManus, Antonio Jackson (FCHS);Robert Spring (2),Matthew Cassidy, Andrew Leaird (CHS).
