Hopkins and company take care of Lakewood at home
Quez Mullins goes in for the tag as a Lakewood Gator player attempts to get on base. Photo by Drake Horton
By Drake Horton, Contributing Writer
Darlington clinched third place in the region this past Friday with a 6-0 victory at home over the Lakewood Gators.
“It was a huge game; there were a lot of implications on it,” Darlington head coach Dennis Gearhart said. “Came in the game, took a loss to them at their place on Tuesday, a 1-0 loss. So playoff wise we knew we had to win by two and that guaranteed us the number three spot in the region and it took some pressure off of us going into next week where essentially those two games against Hartsville don’t matter, other than pride. Our playoffs are set, Hartsville will be a one, Lugoff two, us three, Lakewood four.”
Anthony Hopkins, making his second start of the season since coming back from injury, dominated on the mound for the Falcons, throwing a complete game shutout with 12 strikeouts and Darlington’s offense capitalized when needed, scoring two runs in the third and four runs in the fourth.
“I knew I had a defense behind me and I knew if I missed my spot, they were there to back me up,” Hopkins said. “I also knew that since they were there to back me up I could throw it where ever I wanted to and it resulted in 12 k’s.”
The Falcons got their offense kick started in the bottom of third inning by virtue of two Lakewood mistakes.
With one on and one out, Hopkins laid down a perfect sacrifice moving Jalin Mullins over to second with two outs, giving Eric McElveen a shot at driving in the first run of the game for either team.
McElveen hit what looked to be an inning ending grounder to third, but a wild throw changed everything, allowing Mullins to score and McElveen to make it second.
With another runner in scoring position and still two outs, the Falcons were not ready to stop, yet. The next hitter, Jaret Bryant, hit what looked to be a catchable ball to center field, but a misjudgment by the Lakewood defender resulted in the ball sailing over his head for a RBI triple.
The fourth inning was even better offensively for the Falcons. Tabais Dixon and Mullins hit back to back RBI doubles, Hopkins had a RBI sacrifice fly and McElveen capped the inning off with a RBI single.
Those six runs were more than enough for Darlington as Hopkins stayed dialed in for the rest of the night, even striking out the side in the fifth inning and six out of the last 11 batters he faced for the rest of the game.
“Hopkins came in and threw great, 12 k’s, very minimal free passes, played pretty good defense behind him, I think we may have made like two errors, but we didn’t let those hurt us tonight,” Gearhart said. “On the other hand we took advantage of some of the mistakes that they made.”
Darlington’s overall record improves to 9-7 overall, 3-3 in the region.
Weekly Recap
Darlington had two other games this past week, one against Lakewood and the other against Wilson.The Falcons lost to Lakewood on Tuesday, April 4th in Sumter by a score of 1-0 while the game against Wilson was cancelled due to inclement weather on Wednesday.
The Wilson game has been rescheduled for April 20th and it will be played in Darlington.