Sixth inning rally leads Darlington past Marlboro County
Eric McElveen tries to get the tag on a Marlboro player returning to first after an attempt to steal.
Photo by Drake Horton
By Drake Horton, Contributing Writer
After starting the season off with five straight road games, the Darlington Falcons finally got a chance to play in front of a home crowd and they did not disappoint.
On a cold, but pleasant, Saturday night the Falcons rallied in the bottom of the sixth inning to defeat the Marlboro County Bulldogs 2-1 and improve to 5-1 overall for season.
The first five innings of the game seemed to happen at a lightning pace, taking around just an hour to play with Darlington’s Drake Adams silencing the Bulldogs’ bats and Marlboro County’s defense turning double play after double play to spoil any good start the Falcons had to an inning.
“We didn’t execute early in the game; we had some leadoff guys get on base and we didn’t do the job of moving them up,” Darlington head coach Dennis Gearhart said after the game. “The pitching was great; Drake came in and threw well…hats off to them (Marlboro County), I think they had four double plays. That is unheard of in a high school baseball game.”
Having pitched a pretty flawless game in the first five innings, including a nine pitch, three strikeout second inning, with each strikeout taking the minimum three pitches, Adams hit a rough patch in the top of the sixth inning as Marlboro County scored the first run of the game in a very unconventional way.
After walking the first batter of the inning and hitting the next batter, catcher Matthew Demaurice threw out his second of two runners in the game and Darlington looked like it had a chance to get out of the jam.
But that brief thought quickly went away. A walk by Adams and error by the shortstop loaded the bases up for the Bulldogs with just one out.
With their backs against the wall, Adams and the Falcons defense got an all-important force out at home, giving Marlboro County two outs.
“They had a couple of different opportunities that they didn’t convert on because we played great defense and pitched well behind it,” Gearhart said.
Despite the two outs, the bases were still loaded and while both Adams and the entire Falcons defense were trying to get out of the sixth unscathed he ended up walking in the first run of the game following the force out before getting the final out of the inning by strikeout.
The game fortunately did not end there, however. Down by one, Darlington did what any good team does, especially at home; it responded.
“We went down a run and came right back and responded and that is all I can really ask for,” Gearhart said. “There are some teams that would fold in that situation, giving up a run in the sixth, but we came back and scored two and that’s huge.”
Quez Mullins and Tabais Dixon led the bottom half of the sixth inning off with back-to-back singles, each on the first pitch and from there the two did the rest on the base paths.
Attempting a double steal, Mullins scored and Dixon made it to third as Marlboro County’s catcher’s throw made its way to left field as he was trying to gun out Mullins at third. Dixon scored moments later on a wild pitch, giving the Falcons a 2-1 lead.
Holding on to that one-run lead, Gearhart went to his bullpen and brought in Keshawn Taylor for the save.
Things got dicey in the top of the seventh as the Bulldogs leadoff hitter reach reached second on another error by the shortstop and then advanced to third on a groundout to second.
With just one out and a runner on third, Taylor and the Falcons had little margin for error if it was going to end the game without having to bat in the seventh.
That little margin was more than enough, however, as Taylor struck out the final two batters, ending the threat and ending the game.
“I felt like I had to strike them out,” Taylor said. “We really need the outs and it was an amazing feeling to be in that position to close.”
Dixon and Jake Jones were the leading hitters of the game for the Falcons with each having two hits apiece.
Adams struck out seven and picked up the win.
Weekly Recap
Darlington played one other game last week, a matchup on the road against Hannah-Pamplico on Tuesday, March 7.
The Falcons dominated the game, winning 7-0 as Chase Weatherford struck out nine.