Scotland baseball drops home contest to Lee County

LAURINBURG —The Scotland baseball team fell to the Lee County Yellow Jackets in a 5-2 final on Tuesday night at McCoy Field. The Scots fall to 9-7 (5-4 in conference games) on the season with the loss while the Yellow Jackets snap their three-game losing streak and improve to 8-8 (5-4 against conference opponents) with the victory.

Coming off of an important win over Pinecrest on Friday night, Head Coach Ricky Schattauer admitted that his team got caught in the hangover effect. With more for his team still out in front of them, he wasn’t pleased with their inability to move forward from the victory and build on it.

“We were still kind of high from last Friday night’s win which was a big win,” Schattauer said. “We have to still put that behind us because I think we control our own destiny.”

Both teams would get a run in the first inning thanks in part to an error from the other team. In the case of Lee County, Will Rannells got on base with a two-out single and would move over to third thanks to an error on an attempted pickoff throw. A dropped third strike on what would’ve been an inning ending strikeout to Blane McDonald allowed Rannells to score.

For Scotland, Maddox Locklear would reach first on a fly ball that was hit to right field and resulted in a Yellow Jackets error. He would eventually steal second before being pulled for a courtesy runner in Bryson McCarter. Garrett Manning would drive in McCarter with a two-out RBI single to tie the game at one.

Lee County would quickly take the lead back in the top of the second. Alston Beal led off the inning with a double before stealing third and scoring on an RBI single from Austin Ragan. The Scots would go down in order in their half of the second.

The Yellow Jackets added onto their advantage in the top of the third with Landon Miles getting to base safely on a fielding error and then scoring on a two-run homer from Drew Stanfield. A single from Rannells, another error on a bunt from McDonald and a walk to Gavin Swann would load the bases with no outs, though the Scots were able to retire the next three batters to escape without any further damage.

Scotland was then able to get a run back in their half of the inning with Cameron Cole getting the train started by drawing a walk and advancing to second on a single from Dawson Williams. Kaden Hunsucker would advance Williams to third on a single into center field and steal second before being given third on a balk that would score Williams.

After scoreless fourth and fifth innings, The Yellow Jackets would add an insurance run in the top of the sixth to make it 5-2. Destry Smith would get on base with a one-out single and advance to second on a sacrifice bunt from Jack Martin. Landon Miles would then hit a ground ball that resulted in an error allowing Smith to score and for Miles to get all the way to third.

Williams, Hunsucker, Manning and Robbie Peed had one hit apiece. Scotland as a team was outhit 8-4 and committed four errors to two for Lee County.

The high number of errors was not a pleasant sight for Schattauer even though he thought his group had done a better job of controlling them in recent games. One player he did point out defensively was Hunsucker, who made several impressive catches in the outfield.

“We’ve done a better job and been on the winning side,” Schattauer said. “Tonight it kind of came in those clutch moments, I do want to give a shutout to Kaden for holding down center field really good.”

Dylan Tilson and Peed split the pitching duties with Tilson starting and going the first 2.1 innings while Peed went for the remaining 4.2 in relief. Tilson allowed two earned runs while striking out four batters against one walk while Peed allowed just one unearned run and had four strikeouts against zero walks.

Due to the threat of inclement weather, the Scots’ rematch with the Yellow Jackets in Sanford will most likely be played on Thursday afternoon, though that has not been 100% confirmed as of this writing. The game was originally scheduled for Friday night at 7 p.m. and still remains subject to change.

The last three games of the season (Richmond next week twice) will have a lot of say on if the Scots are able to get into the state playoffs as well as what seed they get in the conference tournament. Schattauer did not beat around the bush in directly telling his team what’s at stake over their last three games after Tuesday night’s loss.

“I told our kids if we go 0-4 in this week and next week I don’t think we’ll make the playoffs,” Schattauer said. “If we can go 3-1 I think we have a good chance so every game right now is big for us.”