NEW MARKET — Southmont’s baseball team’s struggles continued on Thursday night as they hosted Sagamore Conference opponent Frankfort. After two strong innings where the Mounties found themselves up 1-0. In the third inning is where the Hotdogs were able to score five runs which were aided by four walks and one error. Two more runs in the fourth followed by five more in the fifth saw Frankfort walk away with a 12-1 win in five innings.
Starting pitcher Trevor Surface recorded four strikeouts and allowed just one hit through the first two innings. As soon as Surface walked the first batter of the inning is where things started to snowball out of control.
“He started getting behind the count tonight and that pretty much sums it up,” Southmont Coach Brad Wininger said. “That’s kind of been our M-O this year is we make one mistake and things explode on us. We have to limit those going forward.”
Five Mountie errors also plagued Southmont (1-8 0-4 SAC) in the loss. There were multiple instances where the Mounties could have limited the damage but errors allowed the inning to continue and the Hot Dogs took full advantage.
Offensively Southmont recorded only two hits, one each by Surface and Chayce Howell. In their two games against the ‘Dogs, the Mounties only scored just one run, something Wininger knows will have to be corrected.
“Both pitchers we saw from them (Frankfort) had really good command,” he said. “We’re going to struggle hitting off-speed pitches especially when they’re ahead in the count. When we have two strikes on us, we have to try and put the ball and play and force the defense to make some mistakes.”
Southmont will now look to get back on track against county rival North Montgomery (7-3) tonight.
“We’ll be ready to go,” Wininger said. “We have our pitching setup the way we want. We know the game will be intense and that always makes it a little more fun.”
