RICHMOND HILL -- After a shaky start which saw it drop its first two games of the season the Richmond Hill baseball team finds itself on a six-game winning streak as it opens Region 2-6A play this week.
The Wildcats (6-2) have a three-game series with Brunswick (6-3) with a home game on Wednesday sandwiched around road games on Monday and Friday. Other region teams off to fast starts are Glynn Academy (9-0) and South Effingham (7-1).
Coach Chris Jenkins’ team picked up a pair of wins last week in contrasting fashion as it beat Ware County, 11-9, despite making an unbelievable 13 errors, followed by an error free 8-0 win at Islands as five pitchers combined on a two-hitter.
Richmond Hill rallied for five runs in the seventh with two out to pull out the win over the Gators who led 8-5 after four innings.
“As strange as it may sound the Ware game will make us better defensively,” Jenkins said. “We checked the box for about every error you can make: fielding, throwing, catching, wild pitch, passed ball, but all of them occurred in the first four innings.”
“Once we quit pressing and just played ball, we were error free. Hopefully that will serve as a learning experience for us.”
Luke Boone started for the Wildcats and gave up seven runs in three innings, only one of which was earned. He was followed by Ryan Wiebold and Garrett Wright who went the final three innings and closed the door as he allowed only hit and gave up an unearned run while striking out four.
“Our defense late in the game and Garrett’s pitching allowed us to chip away at their lead,” Jenkins said. “We feel pretty good about where we are heading into these first region games. We still have areas that can be improved but we are very close to being a solid team in every aspect of the game.”
In the decisive ninth the Wildcats sent 11 hitters to the plate to stun Ware which also had issues in the field as it made five errors. The Gators had only four hits.
Hunter Legas led off the seventh by reaching on a two-base error. Matters looked dire after the next two batters went down but Leighton Finley kept things alive with a run-scoring single. Boone then singled to make it 9-8 and after Evan Cowan singled Ethan Fuller had a two-run single to drive in the tying and winning run.
Wiebold started at Islands and went 2.1 innings and gave up both Sharks hits. He was followed by Joe Gibson, Blayne Newman, Jalen Varnadoe and Cowan.
While that quartet was keeping the Sharks off the bases the Wildcats scored two runs in the first, added a run in the third and put Islands away with a four-run fourth.
Finley doubled in a run in the first and scored on Cowan’s sacrifice fly. Cowan doubled in a run in the third and Richmond Hill scored all its runs in the fourth with two outs. Boone and Cowan drove in runs before Islands errors let in two more. Cowan finished with three RBI.