Baseball, softball
- Updated: April 17, 2018
Monday’s roundup: Role-player Johnson gives PV baseball walk-off victory on Senior Night; Alexandria gets Oxford again in county softball finals rematch
By East Alabama Sports Today
JACKSONVILLE – Senior Nights are supposed to special nights for the players they recognize and this one provided a special memory for one of the seniors on Pleasant Valley’s baseball team.
Chase Johnson is one of the blue-collar players on the powder blue-clad Raiders, but Monday night his role included hitting a walkoff single that ended an 11-1 Senior Night win over Saks.
Johnson has been used mainly as a pinch-runner this season and gotten fewer than 10 at bats. But his walk-off one-out single to right capped a three-run fifth and was the last of four consecutive hits in the inning.
“Chase is a hard-working young man with a big heart,” PV coach Chris Youngman said. “He shows up and works every day. He has a great attitude and gives great effort.”
The playoff-bound Raiders took control of the game with a seven-run second inning. Bases-loaded walks to Ashton King, Caden Turner and Drew Bonds and Nic Smith getting hit with a pitch drove home the first four runs. Colby Nelson then cleared the bases with a two-double double to make it 7-0.
Nelson went 2-for-2 with three RBIs, but it was a night Chase Johnson soon won’t forget.
In another Senior Night game in the county, Alexandria took down Ohatchee 13-3.
White Plains 9-9, Wellborn 0-2: Andrew Norred pitched a three-hit shutout with 12 strikeouts in the first game, went 2-for-4 in both games and homered in the second.
Norred allowed two singles and a double in his gem, throwing 105 pitches. He struck out the side in the first, retired the first seven he faced.
In the second game he hit a two-run homer in the first inning. Leadoff man Andrew Cronan was 2-for-3 and Jake Spivey went 2-for-2 with a pair of walks; both scored three runs.
Three White Plains pitchers combined to hold Wellborn to three hits. Noah Elder worked the first six and struck out five. Charlie Huey and Braxton Dopson worked the seventh.
Ranburne 12, Donoho 4: Caleb Hornsby went 3-for-3 with four RBIs and Brock Young went 2-for-4 with two RBIs to lead the Bulldogs.
Ranburne erased an early 1-0 deficit with four unearned runs in the second highlighted by Young’s RBI single, a two-run error and a run-scoring dropped third strike that would’ve been the third out of the inning. Nine of the Bulldogs’ runs in the game were unearned.
Seth Ford singled home Donoho’s opening run. Hall Billings pitched the first two innings for the Falcons and struck out six.
SOFTBALL: Lady Cubs get Oxford again
Three days after playing in the Calhoun County Tournament title game, Alexandria and Oxford met again Monday and the Lady Cubs won again, this time 13-3.
The top-ranked Lady Cubs broke away from a 3-3 tie with a seven-run fourth inning. Winning pitcher Maggie Phillips broke the tie with a two-run double. Lanie Dreyer hit a three-run double later in the inning and Emmah Rolfe, the county tournament MVP for her pitching, followed with a two-run homer run.
Dreyer also had a bases-loaded walk-off triple in the fifth. Dreyer and Rolfe, who bat seventh and eighth in the Alexandria lineup, were a combined 5-for-7 with four extra-base hits and eight RBIs.
Oxford took a 1-0 lead in the first on Ashlyn Miller’s one-out bases-loaded single and a 3-2 lead in the second on Crestavia Curry’s run-scoring ground out and Brentli Champion’s sacrifice fly.
Cleburne County 5, Piedmont 4: The Lady Tigers opened a 5-0 lead through five innings, then held on as Piedmont rallied. The Lady Bulldogs made it 5-4 in the bottom of the seventh and had the go-ahead run in scoring position with two outs, but couldn’t get them home.
White Plains 6, Spring Garden 4: Graci Surrett’s three-run homer highlighted a five-run third inning that earsaed a 4-0 deficit. The blast scored Presley Whitten and Hannah Fortenberry ahead of her and gave the Lady Wildcats a 5-4 lead. Lily Ponder had two of White Plains’ four hits.
Southside 3, Pleasant Valley 1: The Lady Panthers scored all their runs in the first two innings and PV couldn’t push more than one run across despite 10 hits in the game.
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