LINDEN — Southmont baseball is starting to play its best ball of the season. Friday night the Mounties who had won two of their last three games made the short trip across Montgomery County to take on county rival North Montgomery. The Chargers were honoring their seniors for senior night but the Mounties had plans of spoiling the festivities for the Chargers. An eight-run third inning and a five-run sixth saw the Mounties come away with a big 13-10 upset win over their county rivals.
Things looked promising for the Chargers early as Brookes Walters drilled a two-run home-run as the Chargers scored three times in the first inning. They added a pair of runs in the third, three in the fourth to even up things at 8-8 and trailing 13-8 in their final at-bat could only scratch across a pair of runs as the were able to down the Chargers.
Both offenses combined to tally 31 hits in the slug-fest.
“A lot of our success starts with playing good defense and we were able to do that tonight with only having a single error,” Southmont coach Brad Wininger said. “When we play defense like that our kids don’t get down on themselves and start to have more confidence at the plate. We played these guys tough last time (a 2-0 Charger win) and our guys wanted to come out and have much better showing tonight.”
Adam Cox and Caden Jones each tallied three hits a piece to lead the Mounties. Trip Ward had one of the two Southmont home-runs in the game and had two total hits as did Carter Hubble, Chayce Howell, and Nick Scott. Southmont in the win had a season-high 17 total hits for the game.
For the Chargers Walters led the Chargers with a 3-3 night at the plate as he continues his torrid hitting streak which now stands at 25 games. Corbin Meadows, Ross Dyson, Brayden Martin, and Nick Norman all had a pair of hits. Norman who is one of the senior captains for the Chargers joined Walters with homer in the loss. Despite the sting of the senior night loss, Charger coach Matt Voorhees tipped his cap to the Mounties for the way they were able to hit the ball. “They (Southmont) were able to put up a ton of hits tonight,” Voorhees said.
“You have to tip your cap to them because our two pitchers that we threw tonight are pretty good (Meadows and Dyson). I’d go to battle with those two guys any day of the week. I thought we hit the ball well too. When you score 10 runs and have 14 hits you should win most ball games. We continued to leave guys on base again and it was a tough way to end the game as we struck out with the bases loaded.”
The win for the Mounties is their third in their last four games. In all three wins they’ve scored at least 13 runs. Numerous guys are starting to contribute up and down the lineup and the confidence for Southmont is beginning to grow.
“Trip’s home run was really huge for us. What started out as him trying to bunt ended up being a two-run home run so he showed me,” Wininger joked with a smile on his face. “Thankfully for us it just ended up being our night.”
The Mounties with the victory improve to 5-15 (2-12 SAC). The Chargers fall to 15-10 (9-5 SAC).
Ethan Gayler along with Jakob Kirsch, Norman, Martin, and Max Verduin were the five seniors honored before the game for the Chargers. Voorhees noted how each of them have been a foundation to the success that the Charger baseball program has seen in the last few seasons.
“Nick and Ethan are the real hearts of this team,” Voorhees said of the two seniors. “Their the guys that everyone looks to when something not going the right way. They really are phenomenal teammates. Jakob is a guy that played a lot as a freshman and has seen a lot of action for us over the course of his career. Max is going to be missed as he’s grown and matured a lot for us and has been a good solid pitcher for us. Brayden saw a lot of time on the mound for us throughout his career and there’s a reason that four of these guys are team captains. They’re all going to be missed dearly and will be some tough voids to fill.”
North Montgomery will wrap up the regular season with two road games. The first coming against Harrison on Saturday beginning at 10 a.m. Then the Chargers will conclude the regular season on Monday with a trip to Greencastle.
