Knights wake sleeping bats in seventh to beat Panthers
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Through six innings, Kings and Little Miami engaged in a pitcher's duel on Monday as the Knights' Zac Murphy and the Panthers' Ryan Christophel held each other's offense in check during a 2-2 battle.
The sleeping bats awoke in the final inning however, as the two teams combined for 10 runs with Kings coming out on the winning end of a 9-5 score.
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The Knights sent 11 batters to the plate in the seventh and scored seven runs on eight hits, including five consecutive on the first pitch.
"Hitting's contagious," Kings coach Kevin McClung said. 'When we got things rolling, everybody got confident. (Christophel) did a really good job against us, but we were able to get to their bullpen.
"It's good to battle late and come up big at the end of the game. And it's always nice to beat Little Miami, who is a good team in our conference and a rival."
Senior catcher Cramer Dethy got the pivotal seventh started with a walk, then advanced to second on a sacrifice bunt by Brandin Sheeler. Jared Michael drove Dethy home with a triple, followed by singles by John Shumar, Dillon Rios and Robby Keever.
Mike Cantrell doubles to complete the five-hit string and Kings led by a 7-2 count. After a walk to Steven Boster, Josh Wittes, Dethy and Sheeler all singled to make it a 9-2 game.
"I know we got a lot of hits that inning, but it was Sheeler's sacrifice bunt that got us going," McClung said.
Murphy got the win, going six and a third innings and allowing eight hits. But he needed help from Chalk Fry who came in with the bases loaded and the tying run at home plate to get the save.
Down 9-2, the Panthers answered Kings' rally in like form as Ty Wilburn, Clay Cleaver and Andrew Mee all ripped singles to start the inning.
After a fly out, Danny Zimmerman walked to load the bases, and Chris Munafo walked to force in a run. Ken Riggan reached on an errror, driving in a run to make it a 9-5 game, but Fry shut the door after that.
"We played six great innings of baseball and had opportunities in the first five innings that we should have taken advantage of but could not get a clutch hit," Little Miami coach Dan Cleaver said. "We're making contact, but we're not hitting the ball in the sweet spot. Give Kings credit, they came out in that seventh inning swinging and made things happen."
The Knights stayed in the Fort Ancient Valley Conference Cardinal Division race with the win, improving to 5-2 (7-11 overall) in conference play, one game behind division leading Turpin. Little Miami dropped to 7-7 (3-4).
Contact this reporter at (513) 696-4526 or shayes@coxohio.com.
