Darlington struggles offensively in shutout to Hartsville
By Drake Horton
Contributing Writer
Quiet bats resulted in a quiet night for Darlington as the Falcons were shut out at home against the Hartsville Red Foxes 5-0 on March 19.
“Hats off to Hartsville, they threw strikes, put the ball in play and we didn’t,” Darlington head coach Dennis Gearhart said. “(Hartsville) took advantage of some free opportunities that we gave them and that is what good baseball teams do, so credit to them.”
Having not beaten Hartsville since 2013, Darlington was hoping to snap the six-game losing streak against one of its biggest rivals, but while pitching and defense played pretty good, the bats did not.
“We got to hit the baseball; that’s the bottom line,” Gearhart said. “We have to take better approaches at the plate, put the ball in play. At least when you hit the ball hard somewhere, good things can happen for you; right now, we are not squaring it up.”
Red Fox starting pitcher Mykal Mack was flawless on the mound, giving up no runs and only two hits, and while Hartsville was not dominant at the plate, it did enough to push some runs across the board and that was more than plenty for Mack and company.
Hartsville got on the board early; scoring one run in the first inning, but while a one-run lead is good, more is better and more is what Hartsville got.
Up 1-0 through three innings of play, Hartsville gave itself some cushion in the top of the fourth inning. With two on and one out, D.P. Pendergrass singled to center driving in one run and with two outs, J.D. Pendergrass singled to right to drive in the other run of the inning, pushing the Red Foxes’ lead to 3-0 over the Falcons.
Connor Strickland hit an RBI groundout in the fifth and Mack helped his own cause with a RBI sacrifice fly in the top of the seventh.
“Well, we managed to scratch out a few and that is always good; just one more than the other team is always good,” Hartsville head coach Tony Gainey said. “We missed some opportunities tonight; I talked to them about that.
“We work every day, every batting practice to hit the ball on the ground, to hit backside. I don’t accept excuses for leaving someone on third base with less than two outs, just hit a ground ball. We had some bad swings, but a win, a good win. We had to come over here. It’s always a tough place to play and I’ll take the win and we will move on and try to get better.”
Despite the five runs given up, Gearhart was not displeased with his pitchers Chase Weatherford or Germani Sutton. According to him it was just the culmination of a couple errors and walks that resulted in a majority of the runs scored.
“Overall Chase wasn’t bad and Germani came in and threw strikes,” Gearhart said. “We just caught a couple of errors and a couple walks. A couple of free extra outs for them was the difference.”
Weekly recap: Darlington’s offensive woes continued this past Friday as the Falcons traveled down to the beach to take on the North Myrtle Beach Chiefs in another region matchup.
For the second game in a row, the Falcons were held scoreless, losing 4-0 to the Chiefs. Darlington is now 4-5 overall and 1-3 in the region.