It was a mixed bag of results for Fort Mill Post 43 Tuesday evening as the junior team rallied to win, but the senior team fell to set up a winner take all game three for the league title Wednesday.
The Post 43 juniors rallied to beat Rock Hill Post 34 in game two of their series 5-4, while the seniors fell to Rock Hill 9-4.
In the junior’s game, heads up base running by Post 43’s Avery Childs scored the would-be game winning run on a Rock Hill error as Fort Mill plated two runs in the bottom of the sixth. Post 43 struggled to hit the ball as they managed just five hits in the game, but improved to 11-0 on the season with the win.
“We didn’t swing the bats well,” said Post 43 juniors head coach Michael Lewis. “They did a good job keeping us off balance.”
In the sixth inning, Killion Bennett led off the inning with a double and would then score to tie the game several batters later. Bennett was one of two Fort Mill players to go 2-3 in the game, along with Connor Griffin. Childs, who walked to get on base, would score on the error that gave Post 43 the winning run.
Rock Hill started the game off scoring three runs in the top of the first and got to Fort Mill starter Paul Solari. Solari would regroup later in the game and allow just one more run on six hits. He would get the win going six innings and striking out four without allowing a walk.
“Paul grinded it out without his best stuff,” Lewis said.
Post 43 scored in the first and second innings to keep pace with Rock Hill. In the first inning, Chico Moreno would drive in Luke Keller on an RBI single and in the second Griffin would double in Carter Cox.
Rock Hill added a fourth run in the fifth inning, but Fort Mill closed the gap in the inning as Moreno would sacrifice in Keller again to make it 4-3.
Once Fort Mill took the lead in the bottom of the sixth, Keller got the save for Fort Mill pitching the seventh inning and striking out two.
The Fort Mill juniors will travel to Rock Hill Wednesday to finish out the regular season as their final game was moved up to beat the potential rain coming Thursday from Tropical Storm Elsa.
Seniors fall hard to Rock Hill
Rock Hill scored two runs in the fifth and four in the sixth inning to break a 3-3 tie and go on to drop Post 43 to 10-3 on the season and 8-2 in league play.
Trevor Krupke got the loss on the mound going five innings and allowing six runs on six hits, while walking four and striking out four.
Fort Mill got only four hits in the game and made two errors in the field. Kenan Bowman went 2-2, while Aaron Pendergast and Chase Dougherty each got a hit as well.
Fort Mill and Rock Hill will play game three Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. at Fort Mill High to decide who wins the league title. Fort Mill still has one game left to play Friday against Chesterfield at home before league play is finished.
Mac Banks: mac@fortmillprepsports.com, @fortprep
