Chapin baseball improving as regular season draws to a close

By WORTHY EVANS

Contributing Writer

Chapin’s baseball team, ranked ninth in the High School Sports Report 5A Division II state baseball rankings, doesn’t have the best record in Region 4-5A, but it has the mark of a fighter in a region known for its battling teams. The Eagles (11-5, 4-4) are among other teams contending with 2024 5A state champion Lexington, 2023 5A state champion River Bluff, and 2019 5A state champion Dutch Fork, and they’re holding their own.

“We finally started to hit the ball a little better,” head coach Scott McLeod said. “Since coming out of the IP classic we’ve struggled at the plate. We split with River Bluff and split with Dutch Fork, and lost two one-run games to Lexington which we could have easily won, but that’s baseball. We’ve been playing well, our defense has been really good and our pitching has picked up. We’re throwing very well and hopefully we can continue over the next few weeks.”

The Eagles opened April with a 9-3 win over River Bluff, but fell 4-2 to the Gators April 3. Since that loss Chapin reeled off a 7-0 non-region win over Brookland-Cayce, and back-to-back victories over region foe Irmo April 8 and April 10—a 10-0 shutout followed up with a 14-4 win.

The Eagles played Brookland-Cayce again April 11 and hosted Mid-Carolina April 12. Chapin returns from Spring Break for a non-region road game at Spring Valley April 21, then winds up the region season with games against White Knoll April 22 and April 24.

With this season’s 5A classification broken into two divisions, it just means that everyone in Region 4 is battling for a top position in the district tournaments, be they in 5A division 1 or 5A division 2.

“It’s the SEC. It’ll be good,” McLeod said. “River Bluff, Lexington and Dutch Fork are going to the big 5A and Irmo, White Knoll and we are going to the little 5A. Splitting games with River Bluff and Dutch Fork and losing two 1-run games to Lexington should help us out.”

Among the Eagles leaders at the plate are Senior and Troy signee Caden Reeves, who is batting .306 with three home runs and nine RBI. Junior Weston Plotner with a .314 batting average, a home run and seven RBI. Junior Felix Flecha-Ruiz .303 with a home run and six RBI.

The Chapin softball team (11-7, 6-2) are ranked ninth in the High School Sports Report’s 5A Division II State Softball Top 10 only behind Lexington (16-2, 8-0) in the region standings. The Eagles beat White Knoll 5-2 April 1, Dutch Fork 9-2 April 4, fell to the Wildcats 9-3 April 8, and beat River Bluff 15-6 April 9 in their region games thus far in April.



The Eagles close out the region season after Spring Break with games against Irmo April 22 and Whtie Knoll April 25.