Saints can't recover from Eagles uprising

By News-Argus Staff
Published in Sports on March 12, 2006 2:26 AM

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DUDLEY -- Wilmington Ashley scored eight runs in the third and fourth innings and held on at the end to beat Southern Wayne 11-5 in a non-conference high school baseball game Friday night.

The Eagles batted around in the third and sent 10 players to the plate in the fourth after the Saints had scored twice in the bottom of the second on a Brady Wiggins hit, an error and three stolen bases that gave Southern Wayne a brief 2-1 lead.

Wilmington Ashley chased Southern Wayne starter Sterling Grice in the third with three hits -- including a home run by Matt Pye. The Saints called Ashton Lancaster out of the bullpen to end the Eagles rally. Lancaster, making his first appearance of the season after shoulder surgery, responded by getting the last two outs and Southern Wayne escaped and only trailed by two runs after the third.

"We wanted to get Ashton 35 or 40 pitches in the game," Southern Wayne head coach Trae McKee said. "Now he should be ready to help us as conference season rolls around."

Lancaster ran into trouble in the fourth as Wilmington Ashley scored five times with two hits, an error, and three hit batsman to grab a comfortable 9-2 lead. David Combs came on to pitch the final three innings for the Saints.

The Eagles' Chris Eason hit a home run over the right center field fence in the fifth. After surrendering just one more base hit, Combs shut down the Eagles and finished with five strikeouts.

Combs helped his own cause in the sixth inning with a long home run over the left field fence. The Saints tried to fight their way back into the game in the seventh, sending seven batters to the plate while scoring two more runs.

"We did some good things tonight," McKee said. "When things started going wrong, we just got timid instead of being aggressive. We had a chance to put some runs up in the fifth, sixth and seventh innings. We showed a lot of heart coming back like that."

With the loss, the Saints record fell to 2-2.

"We still have two more weeks before conference season starts, we hope to be hitting on all cylinders by then," McKee said. "We have had a tough non conference schedule, and that should help us down the road."

Wilmington Ashely, in just its fifth year of athletic competition, improved to 3-2.

Southern Wayne returns to action Monday with a 4:30 p.m. home game against D.H. Conley.

Wilmington Ashley 103 520 0 -- 11 9 6

Southern Wayne 020 001 2 -- 5 6 7

Leading hitters -- Wilmington Ashley -- Edmund Kennedy 2-4 2B, 2 runs, RBI; Chris Eason 1-3, HR, 2 runs, 2 RBI; Matt Pye 2-5, HR, 3 runs, 2 RBI; Southern Wayne -- David Combs 1-4, HR, 2 runs, 2 RBI; Garrett Barfield 1-3, run; Dave Overman 1-3, run; Willie Kernig 1-4, RBI; Brady Wiggins 1-3, RBI

IP H R ER BB SO

Wilmington Ashley

J. Bradley (W) 5 3 2 2 3 3

C. Wellford 2 3 3 1 2 1

Southern Wayne

S. Grice (L) 21/3 3 4 3 1 1

Ashton Lancaster 12/3 4 5 4 4 1

D. Combs 3 2 2 1 2 5