The Richmond Hill Wildcats moved to 6-2 on the year with at 21-4 drumming of Johnson.
The Cats took advantage of Johnson’s early pitching problems scoring 17 runs in the first inning. Johnson walked the bases loaded when Jeremey Goolsby was hit by a pitch to score the first run. Nathan Kilburn followed with a two RBI single. Raul Rodriquez was then hit by a pitch and Cody Rushing walked allowing Logan Wolfe to deliver an RBI single. The run parade was on. The first 17 batters that came to the plate for the Cats scored.
Junior pitcher Ryan Dickey picked up the win. He looked sharp in the first inning, quickly sitting down the Johnson hitters. The Cats added one run in the second. Johnson followed with four runs in their half of the second. Dickey hit a batter and followed that with another walk. Johnson then added four hits to score the runs.
The Cats followed with three more runs in the third and senior Ben Auger came in to strike out the side in the bottom of third.
Again, as in their past five other wins, the Cats scored double digit run totals in the victory.
"We hit the ball well and they had a hard time throwing strikes," Coach Mitchell Curry said. "In a 3-inning game, it’s hard to feel good about winning by that many runs. By looking at the score, you’d think Johnson would’ve made a bunch of errors, but they only made two. We got good production out of everyone which was good to see."
Curry said he considers the season thus far as merely practice seeing how they have only had non-region games. From here, they are jumping into a full region schedule.
"Like I told the boys this morning, everything we’ve done up until this point doesn’t matter. It only matters from here on. We’ve got a long road ahead because there are some tough teams in this region. I feel we can compete against any team right now because I feel this is the best team I’ve ever coached. They may not be the most talented and there’s no standout stars, but they’re the best prepared and they work so well together as a team. We’re ready for region. If we get everyone hitting, we can match up with anyone."
The Cats kicked off region play last night against South Effingham, but results were not available as of press time.
Next up is region foe Liberty County on March 25.