Bainbridge baseball continued to find its stride against Warner Robins on Friday, March 10, beating the Demons on the road 13-0. 

Steadfast defense and solid performance at the plate helped Bainbridge pick up the road win with ease, but it didn’t come all at once. The Bearcats jumped out to an early lead, going up 7-0 by the end of the second.

The Bearcats plateaued for the middle innings, going three up three down for the third, fourth and fifth innings. The Bearcats resumed their scoring in the sixth and seventh with their final six runs to end the game 13-0.

“We came out with a continued focus on defense and pitching well,” said head coach Brian McCorkle. “We’ve always had that, what we really came out with was a good approach at the plate and we jumped out in front of them there.”

In the first inning, Bainbridge got their offensive start off a double from Noah Bryant that scored Carson Inlow, and advanced a runner to third. Will Kelley came up as the next batter and grounded out but scored Keith Lyle for Bainbridge two runs of the inning.

In the second, Bainbridge was able to string together more hits consecutively to bring in five runs. Nick Barber and Connor Strickland both singled as the first two batters up to place runners on first and second. Clark Wiggins then hit a sacrifice fly to advance the runners, then Bainbridge went on their offensive tear.

Caleb Boutwell singled to bring in Barber, then Inlow hit a sacrifice fly to score Strickland, Noah Bryant hit a double that scored Boutwell, and Will Kelley hit a double that scored Sam Boutwell and Lyle. Bainbridge left the inning up 7-0.

Bainbridge’s offensive train came off the rails in the middle innings though, and had to turn to their pitching to keep Warner Robins off the scoreboard.  Will Kelley delivered just the precise pitching the Bearcats needed.

“We knew coming in that he was going to have to be really good,” said McCorkle. “I found out talking to him throughout the game and after the game that he was under the weather, but he really did a good job of going out and competing and pushing through.”

After getting through their offensive slump, the Bearcats were able to regain their composure at the plate. In the sixth, Bryant hit a sacrifice fly that scored Wiggins to put the Bearcats up 8-0.

In the seventh, the Bearcats poured on five more runs that sealed a game that had already been pretty well decided. Bad pitching from Warner Robins while the bases were loaded walked in a run to make it 9-0. Inlow then drove a double to left field that scored Strickland and Wiggins, and Bryant grounded a single to score Caleb Boutwell and Inlow for the final two runs of the game. The Bearcats walked away with a 13-0 region win to put them at 7-5 on the year and 1-3 in the region.