W. Johnston routs Wayne South

By Andrew Stevens
Published in Sports on May 27, 2011 1:47 PM

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DUDLEY -- Even on a scorching hot afternoon an inning has the potential to snowball.

West Johnston pushed across seven runs in the first inning and picked up an 18-8, five-inning win at Wayne South on Thursday in American Junior Legion play. It was a rematch of last season's East Regional finals won by West Johnston 8-7.

West Johnston benefited from four Wayne South errors in the top of the first inning. Justin Carroll's RBI double put West Johnston on top 1-0. Adam Morrison later raced home on a wild pitch and two more runs scored on an error.

Trey Lee's single and another defensive miscue stretched the lead to 6-0. A fourth error on a ground ball off the bat of Jackie Sherrill allowed a run to score to cap the seven-run first inning.

"We have to expect the ball hit to us a little bit more than we did," said Wayne South head coach Trae McKee. "They are a good-hitting club, but we have to take care of the outs that are given to us and the routine plays.

"It does snowball on you. We are a young team with a lot of JV kids and some varsity kids out there. We still have a lot of question marks."

Matt Parrish's two-run home run to center field in the top of the second inning pushed the lead to 9-0 and chased Wayne South starting pitcher Jackson Hayes from the ball game. Sherrill drew a bases-loaded walk later in the inning as the lead swelled to 10-0.

Kessler Sorrell scored on an error in the top of the third inning and Tyler Marshburn's two-run home run extended the margin to 13-0. Jayce Stephenson, Trey Hobby and Carroll all added RBI singles as the deficit grew to 16-0.

Carroll finished 5 for 5 at the plate with three RBI and also earned the win on the mound.

Wayne South (0-1) fought back to score three runs in the home half of the third inning. Two runs scored on Jacob Sasser's infield single and a West Johnston error. Jamie Dove provided an RBI infield single.

Carroll supplied an RBI single in the top of the fifth inning and West Johnston scored an additional run on a balk.

Sasser lined an RBI single to left field in the bottom of the fifth inning. Sasser led the Saints with two hits and two RBI. Kevin Williams contributed a two-run single and Gerrad Whitfield followed with an RBI single. Williams later scored on a wild pitch.

"We battled back," said McKee. "I was proud that they did not put their heads down completely. It can be easy to do that in a game when you are down 13-0 at one point. I was glad to see us fight back."