By Lonnie Turner
After three weeks of Dixie Youth Baseball in Dillon, there are three teams tied for first place in the five-team in the Major League with 4-2 records, including the Dillon Family Giants, the Dillon Internal Medicine Hurricanes, and the Feed & Farm Rangers. The Giants had a chance to take over the lead on Friday, May 2, but took a 3-1 loss from the Giants. The Rangers, behind some heavy hitting in Friday’s first game, knocked the Hurricanes out of first place by a 12-1 margin.
In what everyone looked to be one of the games of the week, the Rangers and the Hurricanes, with Tristian Brigman and Jared Darmon facing each other on the mound, a line drive off the bat of Jackson Stone with two out in the third inning struck Darmon on the elbow of his pitching arm sending him to the local hospital emergency room. The prognosis was a severe bruise and with the Kiwanis organization working with the schools and having a off week due to pass testing, Darmon will have a week for the bruise to heal.
With a 3-1 lead at the time of the injury, the Rangers went on to score four more runs in the inning powered by Jackson Elrod’s first ever homerun that cleared the centerfield fence with two teammates on base. Elrod also had an RBI single in the second inning that tied the game at 1-1. Brigman was 3-for-4 with three two-base hits and two RBIs and threw a four hitter, while striking out eleven, walking three and hitting one batter for the pitching win, his second of the season against only one defeat. Trent Johnson also had two hits in three trips to the plate and others contributing to the 11-hit attack were Jordan Mew (double), Jon-Michael Davis (single, two RBI), and John Rourke (single).
Hitting singles for the Hurricanes were Josh Brown, Darmon, Ameer Moultrie and Brandon Bethea.
In the Reds’ 3-1 win over the Giants, Austin Coward had the winning RBI hit in the second inning that scored Barnes Causey and Gage Hunt. Knox Jackson knocked in an insurance run in the fourth, sending Causey across the plate with his second run of the game. Chase Dudney scattered four hits and struck out seven to get the win on the mound and Collin Hamilton shut out the Giants over the last two innings to get the save.
In a losing cause, Noah Carter allowed seven hits, all singles by Malachi Bember, Hamilton, Jared Ivey, Causey, Jackson and Coward. Carter tripled and scored the lone run on a single by Quentin Hunt for the Giants in the fourth inning. Chandler Matthews and Dawson Perritt also had hits for the Giants.
In the Minor League, the Ace Hardware Tigers and the Pepsi-Cola Blue Jays battled for the league lead with the Tigers winning 12-5 and taking over the top spot with a 5-1 record. The only loss for the Tigers came at the hands of the Blue Jays, 6-4, in the second game of the season.
Ace Hardware scored five runs in the opening frame, added four more in the second, and scored three more in the top of the final inning. Leading the way with the bat were Zach Hunt (3-3, two doubles and a single, four RBI); Troy Jones (2-3, triple and single, two RBI) and Andrew Bryant (2-3, double and single, two RBI). Also hitting safely for the winners were Dylan Windham (1-1, double) and Jacob English (single). Zach Hunt recorded the win. He and Windham allowed one hit each, both RBI singles by losing pitcher Holden Matthews who tripled and singled.
On Thursday of last week, the Feed & Farm Rangers recorded a 3-1 win over the Dillon Meat Center Reds that left them tied for second place with 3-2 records.
The Rangers winning run was scored in the third inning when John Rourke hit a one-out single and went all the way around to score on a throwing error. Chris Hunt added an insurance run in the last inning when he tripled and scored on a ground out to short by Quames Graves. Jon-Michael Davis and Jackson Elrod also had singles for the Rangers. Rourke went the distance on the mound, allowing only one hit and striking out 12 to register his second win of the season against one loss. His total of 46 strikeouts in 17 innings leads the league.
The Hurricanes took advantage of eleven walks and a pair of fielding errors to stop the winless Yankees in the second game. The Canes picked up three of their six hits in the game scoring four runs in the first inning and sent eleven batters to the plate in the final inning, scoring seven runs on nine walks. Keith Ray and Jared Darmon led the ’Canes with two hits each and adding were Cooper Lane and Charlie Collins, both with doubles. BoBo McKinnon doubled for the Yankees and McKenzie beat out an infield hit.
