The Fort Mill baseball team came into Thursday night looking for a sweep of Spring Valley in order to stay near the top of Region 3-5A, and got that in dramatic fashion with a 6-5 win in extra innings.
It didn’t start well for the Jackets as starter Nick Krise gave up a leadoff single. After a sacrifice bunt, Krise issued back-to-back walks, then a single and another walk gave the Vikings an early 2-0 lead.
Fort Mill responded in the bottom half as Andrew Craddock singled through the right side scoring older brother Eli Craddock.
The Jackets would scratch another run in the second inning to tie it at 2-2.
The bottom of the third seemed to be when Fort Mill put the game away as Andrew Craddock reached on an error. An RBI single from Zach Jennings gave Fort Mill its first lead of the game. Michael Rogers then smashed a ball to deep centerfield, but the Spring Valley defender ran it down but it still scored Jennings on the sacrifice fly which made it 4-2 Jackets.
Both teams had base runners, but only Fort Mill was able to add another run in the fourth until the top of the seventh. Trailing 5-2, Spring Valley put a rally together on singles by Colton Jones and Jayden Williams. A walk to Wynn Ravan loaded the bases with only one out. Wyatt Tucker singled to right followed by a base knock from Kameron Morgan and suddenly the game was tied at 5-5.
Fort Mill pitcher Cannon Herring was able to get the final two outs. Fort Mill went down quickly in the bottom of the seventh to send the game to extra innings.
Spring Valley got the leading man on to start the eighth, but then Herring got three quick outs which set up a dramatic bottom of the inning.
David Krise earned a leadoff walk. Rogers singled on a bunt that rolled up the first base line and Brent Laughter was intentionally walked.
Senior Jaeger Pankowski fouled a couple pitches off before lofting a soft fly behind first base which looked like it was caught however Spring Valley first baseman Kaleb Dial dropped the ball scoring pinch runner Connor Ort to walk it off for Fort Mill.
Jackets improve to 10-5 overall, but more importantly 6-3 in Region3-5A play. Fort Mill will play in the spring break tournament in Gilbert before returning to region play in two weeks versus Nation Ford.
