LAURINBURG, N.C. - For the second time in as many nights, the Richmond Rattlers senior baseball team used dominant pitching and a stellar defensive effort in the field to defeat the Scotland Sliders, this time by a final score of 5-4.
The Rattlers finished off the two-game series by sweeping the Sliders in a drawn-out affair, and pushed their Central Carolina Scholastic Summer League winning streak to four games. In that span, Richmond has defeated reigning Sandhills Athletic Conference winner Pinecrest, as well as its biggest rival Scotland. The Rattlers have outscored their opponents 33-15 over the last four games.
On Wednesday, Richmond beat Chad Hill’s Sliders in convincing fashion 5-1.
With head coach Ricky Young away from the team, junior team head coach David Lee took the nod, and sent rising senior Hunter Parris to the mound for his third start this season. Picking up his second win of the summer, Parris was dominant from the hill, going 5 ⅔ innings and allowed just four runs.
With the Richmond baseball program looking to “pitch by committee” in the 2019 season, Young has explained that the summer league team is a great audition opportunity for his players. Helping close out the game late, also for the second night in a row, was rising senior Tyler Bass, as he came in and earned a save in his first opportunity.
“We played really well defensively tonight,” Lee commented after the game. “The last two games have been pretty tight games against our biggest rivals. They were both kind of a typical Richmond-Scotland matchup.
“Hunter pitched really well,” Lee added of his starting pitcher’s performance. “We made some plays defensively that kept them (Scotland) from getting some big innings started.”
Offensively, the Rattlers were able to score runs in the first, third and fourth innings. After reaching base safely earlier in the first inning, Bass scored Richmond’s first run thanks to a Jake Ransom fielder’s choice to shortstop. Two innings later, in the home half of the third, Parris helped out his own cause by driving in Cameron Carraway, who picked up the win against the Sliders Wednesday, with an RBI single.
The Rattlers capped off their scoring, and secured the win, in the fourth inning. Rising senior Nolan Allen led off with a walk, and rising junior Dallas Cowick, who played hero in Wednesday’s win with a two-RBI double in the sixth, reached first on an error. Rising senior Jahan Jones, who usually acts as a courtesy runner, got a chance to swing the stick, and came through for Richmond’s third run of the night with an RBI single, scoring Allen.
Cowick would later score, and Ransom, who had a four-RBI night a week ago against Pinecrest, hit a sacrifice fly to bring in a speedy Jones from third.
“Our bats have come around in last four games,” Lee commented on the Rattlers’ current streak. “We’ve been able to execute at the plate, get our bunts down and run aggressively, which are two of our trademarks.”
The leading hitter Thursday for Richmond was Ransom, who plated two RBIs. Parris had one RBI, and Jones went 1-3 with an RBI and a run scored.
The Rattlers will continue their summer campaign on Monday, July 2, as they’ll welcome in the Pinecrest Pines at 7 p.m., which will be the third meeting between the two squads. Richmond will then take a week-long hiatus over the holiday before resuming action Tuesday, July 10, at Union Pines in Moore County at 6:15 p.m.
