Senior Legion: Post 11 rallies in eighth, hands Wallace 4-2 loss

By Rudy Coggins
Published in Sports on June 12, 2015 1:48 PM

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rcoggins@newsargus.com

TEACHEY -- This win wasn't written by the book.

And it almost didn't happen until Trey Pate left the mound.

The University of Mount Olive signee pounded the strike zone all night and effectively mixed his fastball with some off-speed stuff to keep Wayne County Post 11 frustrated in the batter's box.

Through seven innings, Pate (0-1) had surrendered just two hits, including a solo home run to Coy Barnett in the third inning, and logged 10 strikeouts.

"Trey threw the ball very well and I thought he located his fastball on both sides of the plate, kept our hitters in check the entire game," WC head coach Jason Sherrer said.

But a lead-off walk to Barnett in the eighth forced the Wallace Post 156 coaching staff to retire Pate for the night. After his exit, Wayne County Post 11 put three runs on the board and escaped with a 4-2 victory on the Wallace-Rose Hill diamond.

"He kept us off balance really well," Post 11's Bobby Hampton said. "All he was throwing were fastballs for the most part. He looked like he was throwing a change-up but couldn't find it. I don't know, it came out different, we couldn't square it up.

"Once Coy hit the home run, we mellowed out and said we got this."

Wallace Post 156 had other ideas, though.

Barnett, who didn't expect to pitch, survived a shaky fourth inning. But the left-hander couldn't evade fifth-inning trouble. Post 156 moved in front 2-1 on Luke Quinn's RBI single and Gavin Herring's sacrifice fly to center field.

"He has been back and forth on a sore arm, and we've been trying to tweak some mechanics to help him get better throughout the summer," Sherrer said. "He wasn't planning on throwing and I'm sure the mindset wasn't there. We told him to just go out there and throw strikes, which is what he did.

"He left some balls up, so we went to Bobby."

Down 2-1, Wayne County (9-3 overall) struck quickly when Post 156 went to its bullpen. With Barnett on first, pinch-hitter Tanner Wells drew a walk against reliever Mike Smith. Smitherman moved both runners into scoring position with a sacrifice bunt.

Kevin Williams plated the game-tying run with a single up the middle Hampton knocked in the eventual game-winning run with a groundout down the first-base line.

Ashton McGee's double off the left-field wall capped the three-run uprising. Williams and Barnett combined for four of Wayne County's six hits on the night.

"I guess we realized this is their closer, we've got to jump up," Hampton said. "We did. Everything worked out."

Wayne County extended its modest win streak to three games and has 9 of 10 overall since an 0-2 start.

"It's something we can take into our conference game (Monday) with Pitt," Sherrer said. "Even though we're down, we're not out. We can do some small-ball stuff, score when our bats aren't at their hottest that day and do some other things (to win)."