LAURINBURG — In a battle between two undefeated teams, something had to give Wednesday night.
Scotland came in at 6-0, sitting alone atop the Sandhills Athletic Conference standings, likewise for Porter Ridge in the Southwestern conference.
But, the Pirates managed to get the best of the Fighting Scots 6-2 Wednesday night, handing Scotland its first loss of the season.
“I think they’re definitely one of the better teams we’ll play all season,” said senior Jackson Sellers. “They played well, and we really didn’t hit it in the first couple innings and couldn’t find it at the plate. We didn’t play bad defense. Four runs isn’t going to beat anybody in this league. But they kept scoring and we just couldn’t answer.”
The Scots finished with six hits, two of which coming in the final inning with Scotland trying to rally down 6-0.
After Porter Ridge reliever Caleb Gant struck out Scotland’s lead-off hitter in the bottom of the seventh inning, sophomore Alex Hatcher hit a triple, putting himself in scoring position to give Scotland a chance. Then, junior Christian Cole was able to advance to second base on a dropped third strike after the Pirates failed to tag out Hatcher at third.
A two-RBI single from Sellers scored Hatcher and Cole to put the Scots on the board, but then back-to-back fly outs cut the rally short and ended the game.
“We all felt down, and coming into that last inning, we said this was our last chance,” Sellers said. “You don’t want to put it that way because every inning is important, but the last inning is important. You can put a whole bunch of runs up and they can’t answer. I think that was the real us — showing that fight that we have. We’re a gritty team. I think that was a definite showing that we can answer and we don’t just fall over.”
The Scots had their chances, but just weren’t able to capitalize, leaving five runners on the bases.
Sellers said capitalizing on those opportunities and making the necessary play in the right spots is something they need to do more of going forward.
Pirates’ starter Blake Efird had something to do with that. In six innings of work, he gave up just four hits with no runs, while striking out six.
“He’s a good pitcher, but we knew what to expect, and he was pretty much exactly what we thought he was going to be,” Wrape said. “If we can get him in a stretch consistently, we have a chance, but we just couldn’t capitalize on those chances. Then we went more innings and couldn’t get him in a stretch and he just got more and more comfortable.”
Despite the loss, the Scots remain atop the conference standings with Porter Ridge being a non-conference opponent. Scotland will travel to Porter Ridge to complete the series Friday night and Wrape said that it will be a test of how the Scots react and respond after suffering their first loss.
“It’s not a question of if something bad happens, it’s a question of when something bad happens, how are you going to react to it?” Wrape said. “For us, we’re going to get up tomorrow, we’re going to go to school, take our exams, we’re going to come to practice and we’re going to see them again Friday. Our goal is to now get on the bus and give them their first loss of the season. We have an opportunity to make it right. I don’t look at that team and think we can’t beat them — we can beat that team, so we’re going to jump on the bus Friday and try to go do that.”
Leave a Reply