James Island walks off Lexington, 5-4, in eight innings

By Billy Baker Publisher Berkeley County — Batesburg - Leesville head baseball coach Rob Bouknight got right to the root cause of his team’s 5-3 loss, against host Philip Simmons in game one of the SCHSL AA state baseball finals, played on May, 24 in Berkeley County. “When you have 8 walks, and your defense makes three costly errors, you usually don ‘t win a baseball game, and that is what happened to us today, against a quality opponent who took advantage of those two things,” said Coach Bouknight. “Our challenge on Tuesday, at our place, is to throw strikes, and don’t make errors. If we improve on those two things we will be a much better team for sure.” Philip Simmons, on the other hand, got six innings of stellar pitching from senior lefty Nolan Clifford. He scattered five hits, allowed one earned run, and had seven strike-outs. Clifford came into the game as the school’s all-time strike-out leader (around 172). Philip Simmons was founded 8 years ago. After the game, Philip Simmons head coach Josh Kubisz shared some thoughts on his team’s game one win. “The fact that they had that many walks, and a few errors, and we only won by two runs let’s you know that they are a real good baseball team,” said Coach Kubisz. “Clifford had a good game on the mound, but honestly I do not think he had his best stuff today, but he still managed to get a bunch of outs and get his curve ball over for strikes,” said Coach Kubisz. “I still think he has a little more in him.” One concern for the Iron Horses is a freak injury to number two pitcher Pierce Mullen who tripped and fell as he rounded first base, on his solo home run, as the lead-off batter in the bottom of the fourth inning. Mullen did not return to the game and he was replaced by junior Braden Ward. “We fully expect Mullen to be ready to start the game on the mound on Tuesday,” said Coach Kubisz. “His injury appears to be minor and he should be ready to go in game two.” Mullin is 6-2 on the year. In 57.1 innings on the bump he has 76 strike-outs with a 2.93 ERA. “This was also Charlie Helm’s second save of the year and I can not think of a bigger one,” said Coach Kubisz. “He’s been a step-up leader for us his entire career with us.” Coach Kubisz hopes his teams improves on not popping up the ball so much in game two. “I think we can improve on not popping up the ball so much for easy outs like we did early in the game today,” said Coach Kubisz. “We were underneath the baseball on a lot of swings earlier in the game and we hope to correct that on Tuesday.” The Panthers are expected to throw ace pitcher Carter Bouknight on Tuesday. He is 7-1 on the season with a 1.80 ERA with 75 strike-outs in 57.1 innings of work. “He’s been one of our best guys all year so we need for him to have a good outing on Tuesday,” said Coach Bouknight. “Hopefully, we can catch some breaks on Tuesday that we did not get today. We left too many runners on base today.” B-L led 1-0 after the first inning. Right fielder Reese Boehnke led of the game by hit by pitch and he advanced to second on a stolen base. Two batters later Boehnke scored on an RBI single by Braydon Hallman to give the Panthers an early lead. Philip Simmons tied the game at 1-1 in the bottom of the third. Center fielder Alex Romanski drew a one-out walk and then Charlie Helms reached on a hit by pitch. Then a two-base error on an over-throw to first base on a ground ball hit by Kyle Bachmann brought Romanski in to tie the score. In the bottom of the 4 th inning the Iron Horses pulled away for a 4-1 lead. Mullin led off with a home run to make it 2-1. Second baseman Blake Johnson then drew a walk. Clifford reached safely on a bunt. Romanski reached safely on a fielder choice as Johnson was out trying to advance to third. Helm then drew a walk to put two runners on. Clean-up batter Daniel Scarth then delivered a single RBI, scoring Helms to make it a 4-1 lead for the Iron Horse. In the top of the 5 th the Panthers cut the deficit to 4-2. Second baseman Landon Soper reached on a one-out error and then right fielder Boehnke reached on a hit-by-pitch. Two batters later Hallman delivered an RBI single to score Soper to make it a 4-2 game. In the bottom of the 6 th Philip Simmons added an insurance run to the make the score 5-2. Helms delivered a one-out single and then stole second. Bachmann drew a walk to put runners on first and second with one-out. Scarth came through with an RBI single, scoring Helms to make it a 5-2 game. Helms relieved Clifford in the top of the 7 th . The Panthers got a lead-off single by Soper and then Boehnke walked to put two on with no-outs. Two batters later a single RBI by Jack Bouknight brought in Soper to cut the deficit to 5-3. The next B-L batter flew out to left field to end the game. For the game the Iron Horse collected five hits. Scarth led the way at the plate with two hits and two RBI’s. Other hitters were Helms, Bachmann, and Mullen each with one hit. Mullen had the big home run. B-L had seven hits. Hallman led the way going 3-for-four with two RBI’s. The other solo hits were contributed by J Bouknight, first baseman John Sawyer, center fielder Tanner Watkins, and Soper. Starting B-L pitcher Tyler Kneece worked 3.1 innings giving up two hits and four runs while striking out one batter. Other pitchers for B’L were Soper and Brody Lephart who combined to limit the Iron Horses to just one run while striking out two batters in the 2.2 innings they worked. Clifford was the winning pitcher for Philip Simmons and he allowed five hits and two runs while striking out seven. Helms worked one inning and picked up the save.