LAURINBURG —Scotland baseball coach Chad Hill frequently references a rule his team lives by: Ugly wins are better than pretty losses.
Scotland’s 16-13 win against Hoke on Friday in the Sandhills Athletic Conference tournament championship game might be the team’s ugliest yet.
In a game that lasted 3 1/2 hours and included a combined 28 hits and 22 walks, the Scots persevered in front of their home crowd.
Matt Sellers, Stewart Evans and Nick Callahan registered three RBIs apiece for the Scots. Callahan had two doubles and Sellers had a triple.
“The way we did it made it even more special,” Hill said after his team posed for pictures with their trophy.
After Marshall Chavis put Hoke up 2-1 in the top of the second inning, Tyler Faulk put Scotland ahead 3-2 with a two-RBI single in the second frame.
The Bucks responded with two outs and the bases loaded in the top of the third inning. Kobe Locklear cleared the bases with a triple to give Hoke a 5-3 lead. After hitting a batter in the next at-bat, pitcher Matt Sellers got out of the inning with a flyout by Chavis.
Scotland closed the gap to one run when Callahan scored on a wild pitch in the third inning. Parker Byrd scored on an error later in the same inning to tie the score at 5-all.
Hoke added two more runs in the fourth inning with the help of Ben Chavis’ RBI double and Dakota Walker’s RBI single.
Two Scotland runners came home to score on a single by Evans with no outs in the bottom of the fourth inning. Nick Callahan scored from third base later in the inning as Parker Byrd reached second base on an error, and Scotland took an 8-7 lead.
After a scoreless fifth inning, Hoke found its groove at the plate. The Bucks scored six runs in the sixth inning to take a 13-8 lead. Will Bryant capped off the rally with an RBI single.
But Scotland stormed back into the lead with a rally in the bottom of the sixth. A solo home run by Callahan and an RBI single by Zac Phillips kicked off an eight-run inning for the Scots.
Tyler Barfield held Hoke scoreless in the top of the seventh after escaping a bases-loaded jam to secure the win. Barfield tallied four strikeouts while allowing one run in two innings on the mound.
“We worked all season for this,” Sellers said. “We practiced hard all week.”
Evans echoed Sellers’ thoughts.
“I’m proud of the team for working hard throughout the season… We got it done,” said Evans, who finished 3-for-5 with three RBIs and two runs scored.
