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Baseball: Countryside 8, Seminole 4

 
Published Feb. 24, 2016

CLEARWATER — In its first four wins this season Countryside has relied on pitching and defense. Tuesday night against Class 8A, District 7 opponent Seminole, the Cougars relied on their bats.

They pounded out 12 hits against four Warhawks' pitchers and scored runs in four of six innings to win 8-4. Countryside scored three runs in the third inning to take the lead and added three more in the sixth to put the game out of reach.

"This year I believe we have a very strong lineup but so far we haven't shown anything," Countryside coach Kemo O'Sullivan said. "I was kind of getting mad at the kids because it's going to cost us if we continue to not hit. Tonight we played shoddy defense and didn't pitch very well, but here we are with 12 hits. That's encouraging to me because we have to win in more ways than just pitching and defense."

Both teams scraped a run across in the first inning. Seminole (4-3) took a one-run lead in the top of the third on an RBI single by Caleb Johnson that scored Ethan Roberts. But the Warhawks gave that lead back in the bottom of the inning.

Matt Adams and Steve Wilson both had one-out singles. One out later, Jack Skantze walked to load the bases. Then Cameron Kroeger singled up the middle to score two runs and give the Cougars a 3-2 lead. Countryside tacked on one more in the inning on a Logan Lipsch balk that scored Skantze from third. The Cougars never trailed again.

Seminole loaded the bases with two outs but Adams, Countryside's starter, got Connor Berry to fly out to right to end the threat. Tanner Baker's groundout in the bottom of the fifth scored Skantze to make it 5-2.

Seminole made it interesting in the sixth. Andrew Mills scored on a throwing error and Ethan Roberts had an RBI single to cut the lead to 5-4. But the threat ended when Matt Tharp was caught in a rundown between second and third and was tagged out.

In the bottom of the sixth, Countryside got three more runs as Adams and Kyle Kania each had RBI singles.

Adams was 2-for-3 with a walk and struck out five in four innings to earn the win. It was his first start of the season after he had struggled with a shoulder problem in the first two weeks.

"On a scale of 1-10 I'd give myself about a six," Adams said. "After we got those runs in the third it kind of got me hyped to shut them down."

Roberts was 2-for-3 with a walk and RBI for Seminole. Johnson also had two hits. The Warhawks had six hits total.