Woodland Baseball Defeats Barnwell 7-0 & The Wolverines Are Focused On Strong Finish

By Billy G. Baker

Publisher

Dorchester—The Woodland baseball team played one of their better games of the season against visiting Barnwell on April 8 as the Wolverines pounded out 10 hits in the 7-0 non-region win.

Junior pitcher Hunter Morris worked all seven innings for Woodland, allowing only two hits while recording 13 K’s. “Hunter is one of our most effective pitchers and he throws a lot of strikes,” said Wolverines head coach Ketih Lowman, now in his 15^th season in the program.

At the plate, the Wolverines were led by six- and seven-hole batters, senior first baseman Luke Crosby and soph center fielder Kevin O’Callahan with two hits each. O’Callahan stole home early in the game to give his team momentum. Lead-off batter JT Milligan, a freshman catcher, also contributed two hits in the win.

“We have a lot of freshman and sophomores playing a lot of baseball for us and they are having an impact” said Coach Lowman. “We have had a tie, or the lead, in at least four or five games this season going into sixth and 7^th innings and we were just not able to finish them out.

“We just need to learn how to finish out games because I feel like we are a much better team than what our record dictates,” said Coach Lowman. “This is one of the better teams we have had here in a while. Last year at this same time we lost four or five games by 10 runs or more. We are playing hard, and we are much more competitive this season. We are making good contact, but the ball is not dropping in where we need it to.

“It was great to get offensive production from the bottom of our line-up today,” said Coach Lowman. “Hopefully, we can build on this quality win and finish out the regular season strong.”

  Woodland went up 3-0 in the bottom of the second as Morris reached an error and advanced to second on a Crosby single. O’Callahan then reached on a bunt single to advance the two runners already on base. Freshman left fielder Easton Waggoner then reached on a two base throwing error that scored two runs. O’Callahan produced the third run by stealing home.

Woodland made it 4-0 in the bottom of the third. Crosby tripled to score senior third baseman Dayton Cloer who had reached on a fielder’s choice. In the bottom of the 4th Woodland added two insurance runs to make it 6-0. Waggoner drew a one-out walk and advanced to second on a single by Milligan. Both runners pulled off a double steal and were brought in on a single by freshman shortstop Jet Riley.

Woodland’s final run came in the bottom of the 6^th as a double by Morris brought in Milligan who had reached on a fielder’s choice.

Barnwell (9-9, 7-1) was led at the plate by sophomore team captain Case Davis and junior catcher Joe Huggins, each with singles. Davis was the Warhorse starting pitcher and he worked 3.1 innings, giving up five hits, three runs, while striking out four batters.

Davis was succeeded on the mound by junior third baseman Jaiden Zissett and later soph Colton Smith who closed out the game.



“We are in the middle of Spring break, and we just lost our focus today,” said Barnwell head coach Cody McCollum, a graduate of the program. The team has won back-to-back region titles, and they are currently tied with Bridges Creek at 7-1 in the region.

“Case is our second leading hitter (.377), and he is a sophomore who has been starting at short since the 8th grade,” said Coach McCollumn. “He has a lot of baseball in front of him, and he is our team captain as a sophomore.” (He also came into the game leading the team in stolen bases with 15.)

Barnwell spilt the series with Bridges Prep earlier in the season. It is unclear what the tiebreaker will be should both teams finish out the regular season undefeated in the region. Barnwell has seven regular season games left but only two of them are region games versus Whale Branch in a double header at home on April 21.

Coming into the game with Woodland Barnwell’s top hitter was junior designated hitter Carl Hines (.409 and 15 RBI’s) along with 9^th grade OF John Huggins (.361 and 11 RBI’s), along with Zissett (.354), junior Cooper Boleman (.324) and 8^th grade SS Logan Proctor (.302 & 11 RBI’s).

Woodland’s top four batters coming into this game were Milligan (.438), Cloer (.389), Crosby (.267) and Riley (.250).

Woodland (3-7, 0-4) have seven games left in the regular season starting with a home game against Goose Creek on April 10. The Wolverines have four region games left, two with Academic Magnet (April, 14 & 17) and two with Timberland (April 21 & 24).