The Fort Mill Post 43 baseball program made history Wednesday evening capturing their fourth straight league title at the Senior level beating Rock Hill Post 34 4-2 and having their Junior team, who had already clinched a league title, finish the regular season undefeated.
It was just the second time in program history the Senior team had won four consecutive league titles, as they once won six in a row from 1999-2004. Fort Mill improved to 11-3 overall and still are scheduled to play Chesterfield Friday to finish the regular season.
“I am so proud of the way our guys battled tonight and never gave in,” said Post 43 Senior coach Tom Skula. “We could have easily packed it in after losing game two, but we showed up with the right mentality. We knew going into this series how important a first-round bye would be. We were missing four middle of the order bats all series. I am really excited to see the run we can make with this team when all 18 players are there once playoffs begin.
“Winning 4 straight region championships is an incredible feat. There are a lot of really good teams and coaches in our league year in and year out. It is a testament to the culture that Coach (Travis) Collier, Coach (Jonathan) Romano, Coach (Josh) Corley who is now down with the Junior team and myself have built.”
Fort Mill got big performances from Patrick Matthews and Aaron Pendergast, both of which had two hits and drove in a run. The biggest performance probably went to pitcher Brayden Kurtz. The George Washington University commit pitched four innings of relief and allowed five hits, but held Rock Hill scoreless and struck out five.
“I thought both pitchers tonight left it all out on the field,” Skula said. “Eric didn’t make excuses and gave us all that he had even though he was having issues getting a good feel for his breaking ball. The kid still battled and kept us in the ball game. Kurtz was just remarkable tonight. I am just happy for him that he is finally healthy. He battled injuries almost the entire high school season. I really liked how he attacked the Rock Hill batters inside tonight with his fastball. From my vantage point it looked like he had a great feel tonight with his off-speed stuff and was able to keep a lot of hitters off balance.”
The majority of scoring in the game was done in the first inning as five of the six runs were scored during the opening frame. Rock Hill opened the game scoring their only two runs of the game in the first inning as Post 43 starter Eric Yelton went three innings allowing nine hits and two earned runs, while walking two. Rock Hill outhit Post 43 14-8 in the game, but didn’t score after the first inning as they grounded into two double plays and left 11 runners on base.
“I thought we played really good defense tonight,” Skula said. “Up the middle Bowman and Matthews really played well. They turned some critical double plays that kept Rock Hill off the board and could have swayed momentum in their favor.”
In the bottom of the first, trailing 2-0, Fort Mill got to Rock Hill starter early and scored their three runs on two hits as Matthews had an RBI double and Pendergast had an RBI single in the inning. The Rock Hill starter lasted just a third of an inning. Dusty Sanderlin also drove in a run in the first inning on a sacrifice fly scoring Keith Feeley.
Despite giving up multiple hits, Yelton pitched his way out of jams until the fourth inning, when he was replaced with Kurtz.
In the bottom of the fifth inning, Post 43 got its fourth run of the game on a RBI single from Keenan Sumner, who went 1-2 in the game.
Post 43 is scheduled to play Chesterfield Friday at home at 7:30 p.m. to finish their regular season.
Juniors finish regular season perfect
Both Trevor Hanson and Killion Bennett combined to throw a two-hitter as the Post 43 Juniors shutout Rock Hill Post 34 5-0.
Hanson got the start on the mound and went six innings and allowed the two hits while walking two and striking out five. Bennett pitched one inning and struck out two of the three batters he faced.
At the plate, Post 43 was led by Luke Keller, who went 3-4 with two RBI, as Brennan Helms, Avery Childs, Deuce Homchik and Bennett each got a hit as well in the game. Rock Hill made three errors as well helping out Fort Mill’s efforts.
Post 43 Juniors finished the regular season at 12-0 and will open the state playoffs next week in the first round against a team still to be determined.
“I also want to congratulate Coach (Michael) Lewis, Coach (Josh) Corley, and Coach (Daniel) Gueldner on winning the league championship in our Junior Program’s first year,” Skula said. “I really believe our program as a whole has a bright future ahead of us. I’m excited to see what our program can do the rest of this year and beyond.”
Mac Banks: mac@fortmillprepsports.com, @fortprep
