ROCKINGHAM — Less than 24 hours after defeating Jack Britt High School Friday night, the Raider varsity baseball team notched win No. 3 of the week against visiting Northwest Guilford High School.
Using a 10-hit performance, including four doubles, after only knocking two against the Buccaneers, the Raiders edged the Vikings 7-5. The two teams also met last spring, seeing the Raiders roll to a 14-2 victory in Greensboro.
Senior pitcher Tyler Bass got the call on the mound, his first start of the spring, and became the third Raider pitcher to earn a win. He threw four innings of no-hit baseball, allowed just two earned runs and struck out one batter.
Earning the save was junior left-hander Luke Preslar, who came in for three innings of relief. He gave up three runs (two earned) on four hits, but stunted the Vikings’ late-game rally to help the Raiders improve to 7-3 on the season.
“We already had two conference games this week, so we had to expand (our pitching) with Tyler and Luke,” head coach Ricky Young said. “We have good depth, and both of those guys threw the ball well.
“We’re trying to get into a rhythm, and we felt like if we could get on the field a little bit more, we’d get a little better,” he added of the Saturday game. “And we have. The guys are swinging the bat better. Defensively, we’ve been good all year and it showed today.”
The Raiders got their offense going early, scoring three runs in the bottom of the second inning. A leadoff single by senior Garret Richardson was followed by a one-out single by senior Nolan Allen, putting runners on first and second.
Junior Dallas Cowick connected on Richmond’s first two-bagger of the afternoon, sending a Bryson Leasure offering to the left-field corner for a 2-RBI double. Cowick would trot home a couple of at-bats later when senior Cameron Carraway drew a bases-loaded walk to give the home team a 3-0 lead.
Bass got some help from his defense behind him in the early frames, starting with catcher Garet Weigman roping a ball to second base to catch Hayden Summers stealing in the top of the second.
An inning later, senior Hunter Parris made a nice scoop at third and rifled the ball across the diamond to Jake Ransom at first for a bang-bang out. Cowick would also make two nice picks at second base in the third and fourth innings to keep the Vikings hitless.
Back-to-back singles by Bass and Brett Young in the bottom of the fourth started another scoring spree by the Raiders. Both would move up on a wild pitch by new pitcher Nick Westberg, and Bass would race home on a Ransom sacrifice fly to left field.
Carraway, who went 1-for-2 at the plate with a walk and a bit-by-pitch, led Richmond with three RBIs, and mirrored Ransom with a sacrifice fly to center, scoring Young to make it 5-0.
After walking RJ Brooks and Drew Demers to start the fifth, Bass was replaced by Preslar. The Vikings would cut the deficit to two runs, thanks to a Gavin Mortenson sac fly and a 2-RBI double by Joey Rezek.
Richmond added an insurance run in the home half of the fifth and sixth innings, starting with Preslar roping a double to left field, scoring Allen from second. The final run came when Ransom and Carraway traded places with back-to-back doubles in the sixth.
The Vikings (7-5) wouldn’t go away quietly, adding solo runs in the sixth and seventh innings. Landon Frye doubled home Summers in the sixth, and Rezek struck again with an RBI in the seventh following a Richmond error. But it was too little, too late, as Preslar got out of the jam.
Bass helped his cause on the mound, knocking a team-high two hits in the win. Carraway and Cowick combined for five RBIs, with Ransom and Preslar adding the other two.
The Raiders will return to Sandhills Athletic Conference play on Tuesday, when they host Hoke County High School (5-4, 4-3 SAC) at 7 p.m.
