Darlington swings and misses against McBee, makes playoffs later in the week
By Drake Horton
Contributing Writer
This past Monday, June 26, was a really rough night on the road for Darlington Post 13 batters.
In the 21 outs that the Darlington hitters got in a seven inning game, the Post 13 batters struck out 18 times, with the McBee pitchers striking out the side in five of the seven innings.
“We’ve got to get back in the cage and working hard, changing our approach,” Darlington head coach Dennis Gearhart said. “The is the frustrating thing is I don’t think we did a very good job of making an adjustment.”
The starting pitcher was responsible for 17 of those strikeouts, striking out 17 of the 18 batters he faced.
“He pitched six innings and 17 of his 18 outs were k’s and I told our guys I don’t care if that is the New York Mets out there playing against them if you strikeout 17 out of 18 times you’re not going to win the baseball game,” Gearhart said.
That type of dominance resulted in McBee winning 5-0.
Darlington had chances to score in both the first and fifth inning but, as was the case for the entire game, McBee got the strikeouts when it needed it.
In the top of the first, Post 13 was able to load the bases with two outs, but Garrett Knight struck out looking to end the threat.
The fifth inning looked even more promising as Darlington loaded the bases again, this time with no outs, but McBee struck out the next three batters consecutively crushing any hopes of Post 13 making a comeback.
McBee used the momentum gained in both the first and fifth innings when it shut down Darlington and turned it into offense in the bottom half of both innings, scoring two runs in each inning.
McBee also scored another run in the bottom of the third inning.
Recap
While the game against McBee might have been something to forget, the rest of the week turned out to be a perfect ending to the season.
With Darlington’s playoff hopes in jeopardy following the loss to McBee, Post 13 put together a great performance and had some good fortune on their side that resulted in a playoff berth.
Darlington defeated West Florence 9-0 on Wednesday while McBee and West Florence split a double header on Thursday.
That resulted in a three-way tie for third between the three teams and only two playoff spots left.
Since Darlington swept West Florence and split with McBee in the regular season, Post 13 gets one of the playoff spots automatically.
To determine who will be the third and fourth seed, a double header with all three teams will be played.
McBee and West Florence will play each other first with the loser eliminated and the winner taking on Darlington. The winner of that game will be awarded the third seed and the fourth seed will go to the loser.
Darlington won its final regular season game, a non-region game against South Florence Gold 10-7.
