Red Raiders Score 35 Runs, Including 14 On Wednesday
The Baylor Red Raider baseball team has been on quite a roll lately. Unfortunately for the Chattanooga Christian Chargers, they have been on the receiving end of Baylor's offensive explosion.
Scoring 35 runs in three games the past two days, the Red Raiders made it a sweep of CCS with Wednesday's 14-3 victory at Chattanooga Christian's John Visser Field.
Baylor scored early and often and seven players combined to get a dozen hits in this latest win as the Red Raiders improved to 11-4 overall and 6-0 in region play with their fourth straight win.
The Chargers are now 9-6 overall and 1-5 in region play.
Baylor coach Greg Ellie is always happy when his team gets a win, but he was especially happy with the offensive approach they took and the fact that they stayed focused when it would have been easy to not do so.
"I'll take it," he began when reminded that his team had scored 35 runs in the last three games.
"I thought our approach was really good, especially in the first inning when we didn't lose much focus. We just had to stay disciplined at the plate and not worry about home runs, but we did a nice of being patient and taking walks when they were available.
"We've really been swinging the bats lately and our pitching has been awesome as well. From top to bottom, it was a really good day for Baylor baseball as a lot of kids got a chance to hit," he said, knowing that six of his team's dozen hits were for extra bases with five doubles and only one home run after slugging six on Tuesday.
Chattanooga Christian coach Ben Wharton knows that his team is much better than they've shown these past two days. He also knows that his team has to take advantage of their opportunities while limiting those same chances for the other team.
"That isn't exactly the result we had hoped for," he began after the five-inning game ended.
"We had our chances, but we just have to score when we have runners on base. And we have to limit teams like Baylor with their big innings. Today we didn't do either. You can't give a good team like that extra bases, but they took advantage of all we gave them.
"We just need to be more consistent, but I'm never pleased when we lose," he added.
Henry Allen, a slender southpaw, was the winning pitcher as he was the beneficiary of Baylor's first 10 runs. He only pitched three innings, but did really well as he allowed no runs on three hits while striking out six and walking none.
He allowed a leadoff double to Keegan Nieckula to lead off the first, but he didn't score. Then after a 1-2-3 second when he struck out two of the three hitters he faced, he proved just how good he was in the third. After getting the leadoff man on another strikeout, Holden Lyons singled and went to third on Nieckula's second double of the game. Again, he escaped without further damage by getting the last two outs with strikeouts.
Meanwhile, the Red Raider bats were alive and well as they batted around in the first inning while scoring three runs. They added four in the second while tacking on three more in the third. They had runners on second and third in the fourth and didn't score, but they more than made up for it in the fifth when they batted around again and put the game away with four more runs.
Kilby Hartley and Emerson Morris drove in runs in the first with RBI-singles while Camden Cloud drove in another with a bases-loaded walk.
Cloud had a two-run double with two outs in the second before Hartley drove in another with his second single of the game. Blake Lundy had the big blow in the third with a two-run homer while Hartley wrapped up a really good game at the plate with a two-run single in the fifth.
Bently Banks had a two-run single in the fourth while Nieckula finished his day with a solo homer over the fence in right-center.
Hartley led Baylor with three hits, four runs batted in and two scored while Jack Schuman, Lundy and Emerson Morris all had two hits with Lundy also scoring three times.
While the senior Nieckula had three hits for the Chargers, Banks had the big pinch-hit single in the fourth and Lyons a single in the third.
While Allen was the winning pitcher, Brennan Mustard allowed all three runs on two hits and two walks. He also had four strikeouts in two innings.
Aidan Swinney was the loser for the Chargers after allowing seven runs on five hits in two innings. He also had five walks and no strikeouts while hitting one.
Baylor's next game will be Friday at Murfreesboro Oakland when they face Collierville, the top-ranked team in Tennessee. The Chargers will be at home on Friday when they host the Chattanooga Patriots.
BAYLOR 343 04 – 14 12 1
CHATTANOOGA CHRISTIAN 000 21 – 3 5 4
Allen, Mustard (4) and Lundy; Swinney, Zurawick (3), Visser (4), Lyons (5), Wykoff (5) and Dobson.
(Email John Hunt at nomarathonmoose@gmail.com)
Baylor Completes Sweep Of Chattanooga Christian - Chattanoogan.com
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