BLACKSVILLE – There wasn’t much that was going to stop Clay-Battelle’s Kohlton St. Clair from pitching on Monday.
Except for that pesky pitch count.
St. Clair pitched all but the final two outs to lead the Cee Bees (4-12) to a 10-7 win over visiting Trinity. He struck out six, allowed three earned runs and scattered nine hits to help CBHS grab a much-needed victory.
“(Kohlton) hit his limit,” Clay-Battelle head coach Johnny Coombs said about having to pull the Salem University signee. “He’s the ace of the team. He is the go-to guy. If he is able to throw, I throw him.”
Clay-Battelle finished with 11 hits, and it needed every single one of them as the Warriors (8-8) had the go-ahead run at the plate when the game ended.
“We continue to shoot ourselves in the foot a little bit,” Trinity head coach Wes Hopkins said. “We are a young team. The main thing we try to do is just keep competing. That’s what we did this evening. We had the bases loaded with two outs to end the game – couldn’t write a script better than that because our bats were coming alive.”
Trinity did grab a 1-0 lead in the top of the first as Thomas Dinkel scored on a single to center field off the bat of Parker Hopkins.
That lead was short-lived as the Cee-Bees scored three runs in the first inning while Kooper Statler and Austin Turner each hit an RBI single, and Austyn Foley added an RBI sacrifice fly.
Clay-Battelle appeared to put the game away twice as it pushed its lead to 5-2 and 7-3 but the Warriors kept answering back. An RBI groundout off the bat of Dinkel cut the CB lead to 7-5 entering the sixth inning.
That’s when things got interesting as the Cee-Bees scored three runs thanks to one error by Trinity, a bases-loaded hit by pitch, an RBI groundout from Owen Henthorn and an RBI single from JC Spears.
“I have been stressing hitting the ball,” Coombs said. “I even went and bought those small balls with the little stick bat and that’s the way we take batting practice now. We worked on the outside pitch, we were giving up on those, the other day at batting practice I never threw the ball over the plate. I threw everything on the outside and they had to hit it.”
That strategy appeared to work as the Cee Bees finished with 11 hits.
“We just put the bat on the ball,” Coombs said. “If we can just barrel it up, then the hits will come. We are hitting the ball well now.”
Trinity did have one last gasp in the seventh inning as Ryan Parker led the inning off with a single and then Joel Bowers drew a bases-loaded walk and Noah Toler added an RBI single. However, Spears was finally able to record the final two outs to pick up the save for Clay-Battelle.
Toler and Will McPherson each led the Trinity offense with three hits and one RBI while Parker Hopkins and Paker each had two hits. Dinkel finished 1-for-4 with two RBI.
Spears paced Clay Battelle with three hits and one RBI while Statler had two hits and two RBI and Foley had a double with two RBI.
Trinity returns to action on Wednesday when it travels to Tygart Valley. Clay-Battelle travels to Mapletown (Pa.) for a contest on Friday.
By ERIC HERTER
Clay-Battelle 10, Trinity 7
TCS 110 012 2 – 7 10 2
CB 302 023 X – 10 11 4
TRINITY – Hancox 4 1 0 0, Dinkel 4 1 1 2, Timperio 3 1 0 0, Parker 4 1 2 0, Hopkins 4 1 2 0, Shuba 4 0 0 0, McPherson 4 0 3 1, Bowers 1 1 0 1, Toler 4 1 3 1. Totals: 31 7 10 5.
CB – St. Clair 3 2 1 0, Spears 4 2 3 1, Mercer 4 1 1 0, Foley 1 1 1 2, Statler 3 2 2 2, Henthorn 1 0 0 1, Turner 4 0 1 1, Mercer 3 0 1 0, Gadd 1 1 0 0, Thomas 3 1 1 0. Totals: 27 10 11 7.
2B – TCS: Parker. CB: Foley, Mercer.
WP – St. Clair 6.2ip, 9h, 7r, 3er, 2bb, 6k
LP – Hopkins 5ip, 10h, 9r, 6er, 3bb, 5k
S – Spears 0.2ip, 1h, 0r, 0er, 0bb, 0k
TWEET @DomPostSports
