ELIZABETHTOWN – East Bladen clinched outright possession of the Four County Conference baseball championship Friday night with a 6-3 victory over Union.
The Eagles improved to 11-2 in the Four County and 15-5 overall with the victory. East Bladen will host a make-up game with rival West Bladen Saturday at 5 p.m.
Senior Alex Coates pitched 6 innings of 4-hit baseball for the Eagles, and sophmore Xavier Wooten recorded his third save of the season with a scoreless inning of relief.
All three of the Spartan runs against Coates were unearned. Coates raised his season record to 10-2 with the victory.
The Spartans turned a walk, a 2-out error and Ty Travers’ run-scoring single into a first-inning run.
The Eagles answered with a pair of second-inning runs. Sophmore Ty Watkins sliced a liner past the Spartan leftfielder for a triple. Wooten ripped a single through the middle to drive in Watkins.
Wooten raced home when sophmore Brooks McGill swatted an opposite-field double just inside the rightfield line to edge East in front 2-1.
The Eagles tacked on 3 more runs in the third. Junior Kyle Tatum beat out an infield hit and stole second base. Senior Nikita Owens reached base on an error that scored Tatum.
Watkins blasted a double to deep right-centerfield that sent Owens to third. Coates knocked in both Owens and Watkins with a 2-out single to centerfield that padded the lead to 5-1.
A one-out error, singles by Dawson Thornton and Jordan Blackburn and a fielder’s choice produced a pair of fifth-inning runs for the Spartans and whittled the lead to 5-3.
Coates walloped a long single over the centerfielder with one-out in the sixth, and courtesy runner Dan Tatum dashed home on McGill’s run-scoring single that upped the count to 6-3.
Watkins batted 2-3 with a triple, a double and 2 runs scored for the Eagles. Coates finished 2-3 at the plate with 2 runs batted in.
McGill was 2-3 with a double and 2 runs batted in. Wooten also turned in a 2-3 performance at the plate with an rbi and a run scored. Kyle Tatum added a hit and a run scored. Owens and Dan Tatum scored one run each.
Seniors Alex Coates, Nikita Owens and Derwood Clark were honored in pre-game Senior Night festivities.
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