BLYTHEWOOD – Blythewood’s baseball and softball teams took care of business quickly in Region 5-5A matchups at the Blythewood athletic fields Tuesday night.
The Bengals softball team scored 11 runs in the first inning of their game with Spring Valley and added eight more in the second inning to close out a 19-1 victory in 2 ½ innings.
Meanwhile, the Blythewood baseball team drew 12 walks and Vikings pitchers hit three Bengals batters, which made the runs come easy in a 12-2 victory in five innings.
Tuesday’s win was the fifth straight victory with a margin of 10 runs or more, and the sixth in the last seven games. The Bengals have won seven straight games since falling 7-3 to Mauldin in the first game of the Opterra Solutions Invitational tournament.
“We’re playing well, and the kids are doing a great job at getting some great at-bats, quality at-bats,” head coach Travis Poole said. “They have a good two-strike approach. They’ve been doing really good with two strikes.”
Blythewood pitcher Johnny Collins made quick work of the Vikings in his four innings on the mounds, giving up a hit in the first and fourth innings, and striking out six. Chase Rollings took the hill to start the fifth inning and gave up two runs on a hit and an error, but struck out one and the Bengals defense got out of the inning with the 10-run margin needed to end the game on the mercy rule.
“With pitching, we’ve been talking a lot about throwing strikes, let’s let the hitters get themselves out,” Poole said. “We do the same thing, we get ourselves out. Instead of trying to do too much, let’s throw strikes and play defense. We got a little sloppy there at the end, a couple of errors, but as long as we play solid defense and throw strikes, I feel comfortable with what we’re doing.”
Spring Valley starting pitcher Braden Lawton struggled to find his spots, walking six batters, Blythewood got two hits in a 2-run first inning.
The first came on Alex Myers’ bunt single that moved base runners Kaden Giles to third and Porter Rummel to second. Giles later scored the first run of the game on Jackson Bottar’s sacrifice fly, and while Myers got picked off at first base, Rummel scored on Amare Counts’ 2-out RBI single that gave Blythewood a 2-0 lead going into the second inning.
The Bengals led 6-0 after scoring four runs on two hits, four walks and a hit batter in the second inning.
Blythewood scored four more, only this time with some pop. Macon Leppert smacked a one-out solo home run over the right field fence to make it 7-0, and with Rummel and Myers aboard on walks, Bottar went deep to right field for a 3-run homer to give the Bengals a 10-0 lead.
Parker Connolly took over for Lawton on the mound after Lawton hit Counts. Connolly got Sergio Melendez to hit into a fielder’s choice and Chance Johnson to ground out to end the inning.
Blythewood picked up two more runs from four walks and a hit batter in the fourth inning.
Bengal Softball
In the softball game, Spring Valley took a 1-0 lead on Dahlia Nora’s 2-out home run in the top of the first.
When Blythewood (10-2) came to bat, leadoff batter Molly Wolf drew a walk, moved to second on Makalah Ford’s single, and scored when Ashley Duncan reached base on an error.
Later, with one out, Ford scored the go-ahead run on a passed ball as Lily Zell batted. Zell was hit by a pitch.
With Duncan at second and courtesy runner Hillary Ortiz running for Zell at first, Raygan Segers singled to leftfield and scored both base runners to make it 4-1 Blythewood.
Rhames Weisinger drew a walk and was replaced on the base paths with courtesy runner Gabby Cook. Macie Young reached base on an error to load the bases with one out.
With the bases loaded, Spring Valley pitcher Amaya Hundley then walked four straight batters— Zalayha Rhodes, Wolf, Ford, and Keeley Hughes. Rhodes scored on a passed ball. Those walks pushed the score to 9-1 Bengals.
Ford scored on a wild pitch as Duncan batted to make it 10-1. Duncan later singled.
With Hughes on third and Duncan on second, Zell walked to load the bases. Segars then hit a sacrifice fly for the second out that drove in Huges for the 11th and final run of the inning.
Hundley walked Weisinger, but Young flied out to end the inning.
The eight-run second was more than enough to end the game on the 15-run mercy rule.
Duncan and Weisinger both doubled in the second inning for the Bengals.
Blythewood softball is at Spring Valley tonight, at home against Lancaster Friday, and at Lugoff- Elgin Tuesday.
Blythewood baseball is at Spring Valley tonight, at home against A.C. Flora, and at Lugoff-Elgin Tuesday.
BASEBALL
TUESDAY
SPRING VALLEY – 0-0-0-0-2 – 2, 3, 0
BLYTHEWOOD – 2-4-4-2-X – 12, 6, 3
WP: Johnny Collins, 4 IP, 2H, 2BB, 7K
S – Jackson Williams 2B. B – Jackson Bottar HR, SF, 6 RBI, Macon Leppert HR. Amare Counts 3 RBI.
THURSDAY
WESTWOOD – 0-0-0-0-0 – 0, 1, 0
BLYTHEWOOD – 3-3-4-0-X – 10, 9, 0
WP: Jackson Bottar, 4.2IP, 1H, 5K, 2BB
B – Sammy Franklin 2-3, 2B, Zach Hardy 2-3, Johnny Collins 2B, Sergio Melendez 4 RBI, Chance Johnson 2 RBI.
FRIDAY
BLYTHEWOOD – 6-0-3-2-0 – 11, 13, 2
A.C. FLORA – 0-0-0-0-0 – 0, 1, 1
WP: Bowman Rummel, 5IP, 1H, 3K, 2BB
B – Jackson Bottar 3-3, 3 RBI, Amare Counts 2-3, 2B, 3 RBI, Johnny Collins 2-4, Sammy Franklin 2-3. F – Tyler Hernandez 2B.
SOFTBALL
TUESDAY
SPRING VALLEY – 1-0-0 – 1, 4, 3
BLYTHEWOOD – 11-8-X – 19, 6, 1
WP: Lily Zell, 2 IP, 3H, 1R, 1ER, 5K.
S – Eryn Wright 2-2. Dahlia Nora HR. B – Ashley Duncan 2-4, 2B, 2 RBI. Rhames Weisinger 2B.
THURSDAY
WESTWOOD – 0-0-0-0-0 – 0, 5, 4
BLYTHEWOOD – 5-2-1-4-X – 12, 8, 0
WP: Lily Zell, 4.1 IP, 4H 5K
W – Anna Rea Wilson 2-2. B – Raygan Segars 2-2, Molly Wolf 2-3, 2B, 4 RBI.
