Scotland baseball sees winning streak end with home loss to South View

LAURINBURG —The Scotland boys baseball team saw their four-game winning streak come to an end with a 9-2 loss to the South View Tigers on Saturday afternoon at McCoy Field. The Scots fall to 8-4 on the season with the loss while South View improves to 8-6 with their third straight win.

Head Coach Ricky Schattauer gave credit to the Tigers for coming into Laurinburg ready to play and simply outplaying the Scots. He thought Scotland as a team was a bit flat and didn’t come ready to play.

“Sometimes you got to tip your hat,” Schattauer said. “I just harped on our guys that we didn’t have any energy, we’re not good enough just to show up.”

Kaden Hunsucker started the game on the mound for Scotland and would send the Tigers down in order in the top of the first. The Scots would take advantage of the momentum in their half of the frame, starting with Dawson Williams and Hunsucker both reaching base safely on errors to give the Scots runners on first and third with no outs. Hunsucker would then steal second while Williams stole home to give Scotland an early 1-0 lead.

Both teams had a base runner in their half of the second inning but neither scored any runs. South View would then turn the game upside down in the top of the third by scoring three runs.

Juan Mckoy would get hit by a pitch to lead off the inning while Isaiah Alford would draw a walk to get them some base runners with no outs. Koltyn Ziegler would then drive in both of them with a two-RBI single to give them a 2-1 lead. With Ziegler advancing to third on the throw of his hit, Malachi Jones had a chance to drive him in with a sacrifice fly and did so to increase South View’s lead to 3-1.

The Scots were able to get a run back in their half of the inning, starting with a single from Williams while he advanced to second on the hit thanks to a fielding error. Consecutive groundouts from Hunsucker and Blane Callahan would bring in Williams to narrow the margin to 3-2.

The Tigers would immediately snatch the momentum back with three more runs in the top of the fourth. Consecutive singles to start the inning, three straight walks at one point and a passed ball helped contribute to South View blowing the game open and leading 6-2.

The Scots would have chances to get some runs back in their half of the fourth and fifth innings with three combined singles but failed to do anything with them. South View added two runs in the top of the sixth as they had two singles and a double in the inning, the latter of which was a two-RBI hit from Trey Ray to make it 8-2. The Tigers would add one more in their half of the seventh to increase their advantage to 9-2 and win comfortably.

Williams, Callahan, Robbie Peed, Jayden Bryant and Briley Lewis had one hit apiece while Callahan was the only Scot with an RBI in the game (he had one). The Tigers outhit Scotland 7-5 with no Scot registering more than one hit.

Hunsucker (3.2 innings), Peed (2.1 innings) and Williams (one inning) split pitching duties for Scotland. Each had one strikeout in the game.

The Scots will return to conference action on Tuesday night when they head to Southern Pines for a meeting with Pinecrest (9-4 overall, 5-1 in conference games). The game will start at 7 p.m. The Patriots have lost their last two games, most recently a 4-3 home contest against Lee County on Friday night.

Heading back into conference action, Schattauer isn’t by any means panicking over one bad game. That said, he wants the Scots to head into their meeting with Pinecrest with a sense of urgency and to get back to being the team they’ve been for much of the season.

“We have to remember what we’ve done all year,” Schattauer said. “If this is the one fluke game, I’ll take it. We got to get back after it on Tuesday.”