Aiden Wilson (10) puts the ball in play during the first inning of the Knights’ win over Morris on Wednesday afternoon at Clark Field. Wilson went 1-5 batting with an RBI, a run scored and a walk drawn.
Andrew Smolar | The Laurinburg Exchange
Blane Wagner (29) throws a pitch. Wagner started the game and pitched three scoreless innings with three strikeouts against no walks.
Andrew Smolar | The Laurinburg Exchange
Garrett Hamby tags up to third base on a flyout in the first inning. Hamby had an RBI, a run scored and drew four walks.
Andrew Smolar | The Laurinburg Exchange
Cesar Morillo (14) touches home plate after hitting a solo home run in the bottom of the first inning. Morillo had a team high three RBIs.
Andrew Smolar | The Laurinburg Exchange
LAURINBURG —The St. Andrews Knights baseball team picked up a 13-5 victory over the Morris Hornets on Wednesday afternoon at Clark Field. St. Andrews snaps a three-game losing streak and improves to 20-14 on the season with the victory while Morris falls to 1-31 with their seventh straight loss. The Knights took both regular season games from the Hornets, having also won on the road in a 22-7 final back on March 18.
Head Coach Andy Fox wanted to use this game as a chance to get some playing time in for guys throughout the roster while also ensuring that the Knights were able to rebound from a series sweep at the hands of Pikeville over the weekend. With both goals accomplished, Fox was pleased with the operation on Wednesday.
“Today was a good opportunity to get a few guys in that needed some reps, get some guys some opportunities on the mound,” Fox said. “We did both of those and came out on top. It was good after this past weekend to come and get back in the win column.”
Despite a leadoff single in the top of the first, Morris couldn’t capitalize. Cesar Morillo then got St. Andrews on the board right away with a leadoff homer to left field that put the Knights in front 1-0.
Morillo would also drive in the Knights’ second run of the game in the bottom of the second. Garrett Wolff drew a leadoff walk and advanced to third on a ball hit by Caden Santucci that resulted in an error. Morillo would get Wolff home on a sacrifice fly to make it 2-0.
St. Andrews then blew the game open with six runs in the home half of the third as they would send 11 batters to the plate and rack up five hits in the process. The Knights would also draw three walks and get hit by a pitch to assist in the scoring.
After a scoreless fourth inning, Morris would get three runs back in the top of the fifth. Despite only getting two hits in the inning, the Hornets sent eight batters to the plate thanks in part to a pair of walks, a pair of wild pitches (one that scored a run) as well as a passed ball. All three runs came with two outs.
St. Andrews responded with five runs of their own in the bottom of the sixth despite not getting a single hit in the inning. They drew four walks, were hit by a pair of pitches and benefitted from two fielding errors as well as a passed ball that resulted in one of the runs.
The Hornets were able to scrape two runs across in the top of the seventh to extend the game to the full nine innings. Both runs came with two outs recorded. There was only one total hit and no runs between the teams after the top of the seventh with a two-out single from Josh Zambito in the bottom of the eighth being the lone hit.
Morillo led the Knights in RBIs with three while going 1-3 from the plate along with two runs scored. Jesse Osborne went 2-4 with two RBIs and a run scored.
Morillo broke down his homer and sacrifice fly (his third RBI was a hit by pitch) as staying patient and looking for the right pitch to swing at. His mindset was to get the ball in play and keep the train rolling.
“I was just sitting in the box looking for my pitch and trying to put a good swing on it,” Morillo said. “I was looking to get the runner in to get us going and we executed in this game.”
St. Andrews used six different pitchers over the course of the game: Blane Wagner (three innings), Donald Gorgei (one inning), Luke Drzemiecki (one inning), Brodie Lewis (one inning), Patrick Linck (one inning) and Tanner Carpenter (two innings). Collectively they had 11 strikeouts against four walks.
The Knights will head on the road for a three-game weekend series against Johnson at Russell Morgan Field. Friday’s game will start at 3 p.m. while Saturday’s doubleheader will have start times of noon and 3 p.m.
Johnson is currently in the top spot of the conference standings while the Knights sit in the seventh spot. Despite Johnson’s impressive record thus far, Fox doesn’t view the series as any different than other matchups because of how small the gap is between everyone in the conference on any given day.
“1-12 in this conference right now anybody can beat anybody,” Fox said. “If we play like we’re capable of playing we can go up there and definitely win the series. If we don’t we could very easily get swept but that’s how it is every weekend in this league.”