Scotland mercy rules Hoke County 14-2 behind Byrd’s five RBIs

LAURINBURG — Junior Parker Byrd continued his hot start to the season, leading the Scotland varsity baseball team to a 14-2 win over Hoke County in five innings Friday night.

After leading off the Fighting Scots with a solo home run in the first inning, Byrd would go on to finish a triple shy of a full cycle in four at-bats in four innings. Byrd tallied five RBIs against the Bucks, hitting a two-run single in the third inning and following it up with a two-run double in the fourth inning.

“I just stayed up the middle and hit the ball hard,” Byrd said. “I knew they were going to throw a lot of curve balls — that’s what we had on the scouting report.”

Byrd was third in Scotland’s batting order to open the season, but has since worked his way up to the top of the order this week. Currently, Byrd has 13 RBIs a batting average of .526 so far this season, leading the Scots in both categories.

Byrd said he’s spent a lot of the offseason working on his swing.

“I’ve kind of gained a lot of power in the offseason,” Byrd said. “I hit the weight room pretty hard, so I was just trying to find myself and my swing so I could try to stay up the middle a lot.”

After completing its third straight series sweep to start the season, Scotland currently sits at 6-0 atop the Sandhills Athletic Conference standings.

Byrd wasn’t the only Scot to have success at bat. Of the Scots’ nine batters, seven tallied at least one RBI. Junior Nick Cooke had two RBIs, freshman Bryant Kimbrell went 2-for-4 with a double, junior Bryant Grubbs had an RBI double in the first inning and senior Eric Romaine went 2-for-3 at the plate.

“We thought they would throw the same guys that they did the other night,” Wrape said. “So that helps when you get to see them before. I think our approaches in the cages — guys are starting to buy in, hitting the ball to the big part of the field and swinging through the ball. I think that’s paying off.”

Senior Jackson Sellers started the game pitching for Scotland, throwing two innings, while giving up two earned runs and striking out three hitters.

Sellers then made way for Byrd, who, in addition to his work at the plate, finished out the game on the mound. In three innings, Byrd gave up no hits and no runs, while also striking out three.

“I just wanted to pitch ahead since we had a big lead when I came in,” Byrd said. “I just threw strikes, and I think we have one of the best defenses in the state so I just let my boys work.”

Wrape said the plan coming into the game was to get innings for both Sellers and Byrd to throw.

“Jackson did a good job, he threw about 50 pitches and we thought that was enough for today,” Wrape said. “Parker came in and gave us some good innings too.”

Scotland will now head out-of-conference for a home-away series against Porter Ridge next week on Wednesday and Friday.