Lee County baseball sweeps past Grovetown in the Class AAAAAA first round

LEESBURG — The Lee County Trojans are headed to the second round of the Class AAAAAA state baseball playoffs after sweeping Grovetown Wednesday afternoon 6-1 and 12-0 behind strong pitching, timely hitting and excellent defense.

Trojan senior Owen Greene gave up a run in the first inning of play with a walk, a hit batsman and two singles, but from that point on was dominant. He pitched the complete game and gave up that one run on five hits and a walk. He struck out four. Sophomore Gaven Smith was even more dominating on the mound. He pitched the entire game as well, giving up only two hits, no runs, striking out seven and walking one.

“We’re excited about the sweep and the way the team played,” said Lee County head coach Brian Trivette. “Both pitchers filled up the zone and we made the routine plays defensively. Offensively we’ve continued to progress all season and we hit it very well last night. I’m very proud of our guys.”

While the Trojans had one error in each game, Grovetown committed three in Game 1 and five in Game 2. The Trojans also turned two double plays to help with those miscues.

The Trojans belted nine hits in Game 1, led by Peyton Tompkins with three hits, with two hits each from Owen Greene, Alex Newton and Cameron Paul. Paul doubled in the bottom of the fourth for the only extra-base hit. He led with three RBIs in Game 1.

The bottom of the fourth was when possibly the most interesting play of the game happened. The Trojans had already pushed two runs across the plate with Paul’s double and a sacrifice fly from Tripp Thomas and the bases were empty. Tompkins followed with a single to left and then Greene hit a high fly ball to right which was dropped by the right fielder. Tompkins raced around the bases but saw the ball coming toward home and stopped and headed back to third base. Meanwhile, Greene sped around the bases and slie headfirst into third base, where Tompkins was also headed. The Grovetown players didn’t know what to do, so Greene raced back to second and beat the throw, and both Tompkins and Greene were safe. Moments later, the inning ended on a ground ball, but it could have been an even bigger blunder if the Trojans had been able to knock in more runs.

In Game 2, the Trojans tallied 10 hits, including two hits each from Tripp Thomas, Alex Newton, Kyle Hudson and Luke Powell. Thomas smacked two doubles and Newton hit one. Powell led the team with four RBIs and Peyton Tompkins added two.

The Trojans will now host Alexander High School (15-14) from Douglasville, just west of Atlanta. Alexander is the No. 4 team from its region, but it knocked off River Ridge (21-9) by sweeping a doubleheader in Cherokee County Wednesday afternoon.

Joe WhitfieldJoe Whitfield