The quick start continued for the Greyhounds on the baseball diamond last week, both in the region standings and in the line score.
After single runs in the first two innings and one in the third inning keyed an 8-0 road win on Wednesday at Woodland, Jones County put the hammer down and didn’t let up in the home contest between the two teams, blowing the game open with a seven-run third and two more runs in the fourth to win 15-0. As a result, JCHS began region play 4-0.
“We challenged them to come out strong, and they made adjustments,” Greyhounds head coach Noble Coley said. “It was honestly one of the better overall games I’ve seen us play this year.”
With four blowout wins to start region play, offense has been a prominent part of each of those wins, but as, if not more, impressive has been the showing so far from the Greyhounds’ pitchers. After holding Woodland to four hits and striking out 11 on Wednesday, Landon Pettigrew tossed three innings of shutout ball Friday, allowing two hits and striking out six in addition to Cayden Tidwell yielding two hits in an inning-worth of work.
“He went out there a pitched great, Woodland’s a good team,” Coley said of Pettigrew. “Could he have finished it? Yes, but we have not really had an opportunity to get a lot of work in for some of our pitchers. (Later on this year), they will have to be ready.”
Of course, when the bats swing as well as they have as of late for the Greyhounds, it amounts to more than enough of a pitching cushion.
Lampkin helped himself on Friday with two hits with two hits as well by Kaylob Harris and Noah Robinson. In fact, Harris had two of the Greyhounds’ five doubles in addition to those by Jonathan Scarbary, Davis Upshaw and Brayden Lampkin. Jonathan Scarbary drove in three runs with two RBIs a piece by Upshaw, Pettigrew and Robinson.
“We don’t try to run it up, but at the same time, I’m not going to take the bat out of a guy’s hands,” Coley said. “We only know one way of playing, and that is full speed.”
Both Scarbary and Robinson had big hits in the third.
A bases-clearing double by Scarbary made the lead 9-0, and Robinson’s triple combined with an error allowed him to beat the throw home, pushing the advantage to 12-0.
