DUBLIN — West Bladen’s baseballers were battling three challenges on Tuesday when St. Pauls came to town for a conference game: their own mental mistakes, rain showers over the last three innings and a Bulldogs team that had to qualms about running up the score.
St. Pauls sent 14 hitters to the plate against two Knights pitchers in the first inning, using six hits, three walks, two hit batters, five errors, five stolen bases and a wild pitch to take a 10-0 lead right out of the gate.
West Bladen tried to make a game of it when Hunter Elks led off with a walk, Alex Strange reached on an infield single and, after an out, Brycen Blackmon grounded into a fielder’s choice just ahead of Alex Brisson’s long two-run double to the fence in left.
But the scoring ended there, with the Knights down 10-2.
West Bladen held the Bulldogs in check over the next two innings, but also went quietly themselves.
In the top of the fourth inning, St. Pauls sent 13 hitters to the plate and scored another nine runs on just one hit — along with seven walks, one error, four wild pitches, a stolen base, a few wild pitches and a sacrifice fly to take a 19-2 advantage.
Five of the next six West Bladen hitters struck out in the rain over the fourth and fifth innings. In between, the Bulldogs added four more runs in the top of the fifth on two hits, three walks, a hit batter and an error to complete the scoring.
The Knights used four pitchers in the game — Garrison Carr, Brisson, Josh Russ and Aaron Wren.
At the plate, West Bladen tallied just the two hits — the two-run double by Brisson and the single by Strange.
The loss dropped the Knights to 5-8 overall and 1-6 in SAC play. They will go on the road Friday for a 7 p.m. conference game with St. Pauls.
W. Curt Vincent can be reached at 910-862-4163 or [email protected].