Wayne County Post 11 completes regular-season sweep of Jones County

By Rudy Coggins
Published in Sports on June 6, 2013 1:47 PM

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TRENTON -- That eery sense of deja vu surfaced again.

This time, however, Wayne County Post 11 didn't fall into repeat mode.

After seeing its five-run lead nearly evaporate in the fourth inning Wednesday evening, Post 11 refused to shut down offensively. It scratched for single runs in two innings and busted loose with an eight-run, eighth-inning outburst that led to a 15-4, mercy-rule triumph over Jones County Post 154.

Eight of nine starters recorded at least one hit for Wayne County, which swept the regular-season series. Lead-off batter Adam Pate (three RBI), Zack Smith (two RBI) and Jacob Sasser (RBI) supplied two hits apiece.

Cody Wendorf (2-0) provided four innings of one-hit, seven-strikeout relief and earned the mound win. Reed Howell started and yielded four runs (three earned) on two walks and six hits.

"One thing I was very pleased with is he only had one walk," Post 11 head coach Jason Sherrer said of Wendorf. "He threw strikes, gave our team a chance to score some more runs. Our defense played behind him, so it was good to see him go out and throw like that.

"That's a good thing to take from today."

Wayne County (8-2 overall) overcame three base-running mistakes and three defensive miscues. Jones County (1-4) picked off two runners and catcher Christian Hiesey threw a Post 11 runner out at second base in the opening inning.

Sherrer's squad grabbed a 5-0 advantage after 1 1/2 innings.

Catcher Justin Barbour drew a lead-off walk and moved into scoring position on Sasser's double -- one of five doubles recorded by Wayne County batters on the night. After a strikeout, Greg Johnson plated both runners with a single to right field.

Duane Gurganus walked and scored, along with Johnson, on Pate's double to deep left field. Pate capped the scoring on Garrett Joyner's sacrifice fly.

Howell escaped a bases-loaded jam in the opening inning and retired seven consecutive batters. But the right-hander ran into trouble in the fourth and surrendered four runs with two outs.

Post 11 misplayed a swinging bunt that resulted in a dropped third strike and committed a throwing error on an infield hit that helped close the gap to 5-4.

"We threw the ball away a little bit ... ended up giving them a big inning which you don't like to see when you're up early in the ballgame," Sherrer said. "If we let teams hang around when we should be adding some more (runs), we're going to be in trouble."

Wayne County's offense shut down after building a 4-0 lead in a home loss on Tuesday. It almost did the same against Post 154 right-hander Shane Hardison and reliever Trevor Pentz. The duo combined to retire six of seven batters during a two-inning stretch.

But Post 11 overcame a fifth-inning base-running mistake and collected one run. Wayne County added a sixth-inning run, which gave Wendorf plenty of working room. The left-hander escaped fifth-inning trouble and eventually retired the final nine batters he faced.

Wayne County sent 12 batters to the plate in the decisive eighth and manufactured eight runs off of five hits, two walks, an error and a hit batsman.