Mistakes doom Darlington against Sumter
By Drake Horton, Contributing Writer
It was not the first inning that was too much to overcome. Instead, it was the second.
After falling behind 3-0 in the top half of the first inning, Darlington Post 13 found itself behind the “eight ball,” but a three-run deficit is not something that is insurmountable to overcome. It was the eight-run second inning that Sumter Post 15 put together, putting Darlington down 11-1 early that foreshadowed the writing on the wall.
“We tell the guys you can’t play baseball like a rollercoaster- you can’t have up innings and down innings, you have to play with the same intensity, same level the whole game,” Darlington head coach Dennis Gearhart said after the game. “When bad things happen, sometimes it does spiral. But a good baseball team, a baseball team that has some character, will fight out of that situation.”
Sumter went on to win 17-6 in six innings, but despite the lopsided score (due to Post 15’s quick start) Darlington showed heart and grit throughout the game.
Down by 10 heading into the bottom of the second inning, most teams would just roll over, take their whooping and look to rebound for the next game. Darlington had a different idea.
Instead of being completely embarrassed on their own home field, Post 13 regained their composure, battling back, cutting the lead to just five runs at one point. Darlington was unable to complete the improbable comeback, however, as Sumter stretched its lead back out in the fifth and sixth innings, scoring two runs in the fifth and four in the sixth.
It was game where Sumter always seemed to be in control, but it was not due to the fact of what Sumter did as much as it was to what Darlington did not do.
One of the biggest things Gearhart preaches to his team is for each player to do their job and to never give the opposing team any extra outs. Against Sumter, extra outs were something that Post 13 seemed to give out like free candy.
Darlington committed at least seven errors, while walking at least five batters and hitting two batters, which gave Sumter at least 14 extra outs to work with. That does not even include the balk or the multiple wild pitches. Add those and the number jumps to 17.
The more important part of that number is 13 of those so called extra outs came in the second, fifth and sixth innings where Post 15 scored a combined 14 of their 17 runs.
“We talked about when you play a good baseball team you can’t give them extra help,” Gearhart said. “We walked a lot of guys. I told them and it’s probably generous, we probably had eight errors in the field. Every time you have an error that’s an extra out. You can’t give a 13-0 baseball team extra outs.”
That was the real story of the game. It was not as much as Sumter was better than Darlington. It was Darlington just did not play up to their potential.
If you eliminate all of those extra outs, there is a chance that the game is as close as 3-2 in Sumter’s favor- a vast difference from the actual final score.
So while the end result looked disproportionate, both teams are a lot closer in talent than what appears to the naked eye.
Weekly Recap
Darlington dropped two other games this week, one against Hartsville on Monday, June 20, by a score of 9-1 with the other coming this past Thursday against Marlboro County by a score of 5-3.
Post 13 is now 4-5 overall, 2-4 in the region.