LAURINBURG — It wasn’t the ending the junior varsity Richmond Rattlers baseball team was looking for, but for coach Corey Wallace, it was a “pretty good summer.”
The Rattlers closed out their 2019 Central Carolina Scholastic Summer League schedule on the road at Scotland Thursday, falling to the Sliders 12-7 in six innings (time limit). Richmond’s overall record this summer was 4-8.
“It was a pretty good summer,” Wallace commented after the game. “Playing 12 games let us know what we need to work on in the fall. I told the guys that summer ball is all about seeing what they’ve got and using that moving forward.
“Some things we’ll work on is fielding the ball and knowing where to go with the throw,” he continued. “And we’d like to swing the bats better — that’s the main thing. But we saw a lot of good things this summer and there’s a lot of potential to work with.”
Getting the start in the summer finale for Richmond was rising freshman Ashton Phifer, who pitched an inning and gave up four runs to start the second inning without recording an out.
From there, Richmond used a platoon of pitchers the rest of the way. Rising freshman Brycen Goodwin relieved Phifer in the second and faced five batters before seeing fellow freshman Ethan Clayton take over. Clayton threw three innings, gave up four runs on four hits and struck out one batter.
Freshman Thomas Lampley threw 1.1 innings of work, and Ethan Locklear was the final player to pitch for Richmond, pitching until the game was called in the bottom of the sixth.
The Rattlers jumped out to a 6-0 lead after the first inning and a half, starting with rising sophomore Chandler Orr scoring on a wild pitch in the first.
An inning later, Richmond used a leadoff double by freshman Shoan Hodges and a bunt single by Phifer to put runners on the corners with no outs. Hodges would score on a throwing error by Scotland’s catcher trying to get Phifer stealing second to make it 2-0.
Lampley kept the inning going by beating out an infield single to third base, plating Phifer. Another Scotland error, this time on an Emmanuel Gilliam bunt, let him reach safely while also scoring Brycen Goodwin (hit-by-pitch).
A 4-3 fielder’s choice by Orr scored Lampley, and Gilliam capped the inning when he crossed home plate safely on a wild pitch.
But the Sliders would answer back with five runs of their own in the bottom of the second to cut the deficit to 6-5. From there, the Rattlers’ bats went quiet, as Scotland scored seven runs to Richmond’s one in the final four innings of play.
The Sliders added a run in the third to tie the game, before scoring three runs in the fourth to take a 9-6 lead. Clayton drove in the final Richmond run of the summer with an RBI single to right field in the fifth, scoring sophomore Dexter Mabe (walk).
A solo run in the bottom of the fifth was added to with two more runs in the bottom of the sixth by Scotland for the final score.
Seven different Rattlers recorded a hit in the game, with Hodges’ double being the lone extra base knock. Clayton, Lampley and Orr each recorded one RBI.
