Coker’s complete game, Joyner’s big hit leave Darlington just short
Bryant Huggins
Photo by Drake Horton
By Drake Horton, Contributing Writer
Hartsville – All it took was one elevated pitch to change the course of the game.
“He left it up and that is what a good hitter is going to do,” Darlington head coach Dennis Gearhart said, recapping the ever so fatal sixth inning.
Tied at three in Hartsville, the Red Foxes’ Steve Joyner roped two-out, two RBI doubles on the first pitch from Darlington reliever Rylan Weatherford in the bottom of the sixth inning, putting the two-time defending lower-state champs up for good, as Hartsville won 5-3 this past Wednesday.
All of the excitement was not in that one play, however. In a game that featured some of the best pitchers in the state with Clemson signee Andrew Coker on the mound for Hartsville and Clemson commit Bryant Huggins on the mound for Darlington, offense was at a minimum and each team was forced to make the most out of its opportunities.
“They are a great baseball team, there is no doubt about that,” Gearhart said of Hartsville. “They hit the ball when they needed to, they took advantage of the some of the errors we made and some free passes. We walked a couple of guys and they did what they were supposed to do; they moved runners around.”
It was Hartsville that struck first in the scoring column, turning a two-out Baker Wilfong infield single into a run as Coker helped his own cause with a RBI single to right field after a bad pickoff throw allowing Coker’s pinch runner to advance to second.
The Red Foxes struck again in the bottom of the second inning with two outs as Cal Brunson scored on a RBI single to center field. There may have been a possible play at the plate, but a slight bobble by Jared Boswell gave the play no chance.
Darlington cut into the Red Foxes 2-0 lead in the top of the third inning as Brycen Brown went backside with a single to left field scoring shortstop Garrett Revell.
Hartsville answered the Falcons run however, in the bottom half of the inning and just like the previous two runs this run was scored with two outs as well as Brunson hit a soft RBI single.
With a 3-1 lead and Coker cruising on the mound for the Red Foxes, the game looked to be in hand, but Darlington wanted to prove to everybody that it was capable of playing with Hartsville and that is exactly what happened in the top of the fifth.
“When we first talked this season I said that when we play our baseball game we can compete with anybody we step onto the baseball field with and we proved it tonight,” Gearhart said after the game.
After starting the inning off with back to back singles and two steals, Boswell scored on a wild pitch from Coker and Brown picked up his second RBI of the game, scoring Revell on a and that groundout to the shortstop.
Darlington held Hartsville scoreless in the bottom half of the fifth and the momentum was riding high on the Falcons side, but Coker got a quick, one, two, three sixth inning.
The win, which moves Hartsville one game closer to clinching its fourth straight region championship, was something that did not come as easy as some Red Fox fans would have hoped for, especially with their ace on the mound and playing on their home field.
“I’m happy with the win,” Hartsville head coach Tony Gainey said after the game. “They (Darlington) played their butts off; you have to give them that. I hadn’t seen them all year, didn’t know how they were playing, I had just seen box scores in the paper and stuff, but they came out swinging. They put some balls in play, they hit the ball, a lot of people don’t hit Coker like that.”
While the loss does set back Darlington’s hope of winning the region championship back a bit, the Falcons still are in great shape of finishing second and getting to host a home playoff game.