Darlington captures third in Pee Dee Invitational
First baseman Eric McElveen tries to get the tag against a player for the McBee Panthers.
Photos by Drake Horton
By Drake Horton, Contributing Writer
The Darlington Falcons wrapped up the Pee Dee Invitational this past Thursday, defeating the defending 1A state champions, the McBee Panthers 6-1, to earn third place overall for the tournament.
“I thought our pitching has been outstanding all week and for the most part we played some pretty solid defense,” Darlington Falcons head coach Dennis Gearhart said on his team’s overall performance in the tournament. “When we’ve hit it’s been good, but that is definitely an area we are working on every day.”
Playing in Hartsville, who was hosting the championship games of the tournament, the Falcons received an all-around spectacular performance from Drake Adams, who pitched four shutout innings to go along with two RBIs at the plate to help guide Darlington to the victory.
Darlington High School pitcher Drake Adams winds up for the release during the Pee Dee Invitational.
“We got the job done and hit well as a team; did everything we needed to do,” Adams said.
The game started off with the looks of being a classic pitchers’ duel in the first three innings as both team were held scoreless. That changed, however, in the fourth inning.
With the bases loaded and just one out, Adams slapped a single into left field scoring two runs for the Falcons.
That hit seemed to spark the Falcons offense for the rest of the game.
Still leading 2-0 in the fifth inning, Darlington loaded the bases once again with one out and just like it did in the fourth inning, it capitalized.
After Eric McElveen’s walk loaded up the bases in the top half of the fifth, Darlington’s next three batters in some way or another were able to drive a run.
Jake Jones got the scoring going in with a RBI single to left field, Jaret Bryant followed with a RBI sacrifice fly to left field and Adams finished it out reaching on an error by the shortstop that let a run become a score.
In the sixth inning, Darlington was able to capitalize on McBee’s errors again as Jalin Mullins reached on a drop by the center fielder, letting Quez Mullins score, having reached base himself off of an error by the Panthers third baseman.
McBee scored its lone run of the game in the bottom of the seventh inning after left fielder Tabias Dixon misplayed a ball.
Tournament Recap
Darlington went 3-1 overall in tournament defeating not only McBee in the third place game, but West Florence 1-0 and Wilson 7-2 in eight innings.
The Falcons lone loss of the tournament was their opening game; a 5-4 defeat at the hands of the South Florence Bruins, who went on to win the Pee Dee Invitational, beating Hartsville 13-6 in the championship game.