Deerfield-Windsor takes two from Westwood

CAMILLA — The Deerfield-Windsor Knights swept a doubleheader over the Westwood Wildcats Tuesday, winning 10-1 in the first game, then holding on to win 9-7 in the second game that was shortened game because of darkness.

Leading 3-0 into the top of the fifth of Game 1, the Knights blew open the game with five hits, a wild pitch, a passed ball, and two errors as 12 Knights batted in the inning and scored four times. The inning also led to the Wildcats taking out senior right-hander Collier Baggett and saw catcher Tanner Stanaland suffer a game-ending injury.

The Wildcats changed pitchers in the middle of that big inning, but it didn’t stop the hits for the Knights. Deerfield had back-to-back doubles by Howell Logan and Bryce Northrop to continue the onslaught.

Altogether, the Knights pounded out 12 hits against the Wildcats while strong pitching from Tanner Ford kept the Wildcats off the base paths with only two hits and two walks.

In the second game, the Knights jumped out big to start with a double by catcher Steven Williams who later scored the game’s first run. Two more runs came across the plate in the first inning, including a walk-in RBI by Jack Kimbrel when he was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded.

John Samuel Shenker smacked a two-run homer in the bottom of the second to increase the Knights’ lead to 5-0 after two innings. A couple innings later John Logan smashed a drive over the center field fence to add another homerun and then Deerfield held a huge lead.

The Knights were leading with strong pitching from Clarke Sullivan, but a pitching change for the Knights gave new life to the Wildcats. Westwood scored seven runs on three hits and a couple of errors in the sixth inning to bring the Wildcats close to tying up the game. Trailing only 8-7, the Knights added another run in the fifth to bring the final to 9-7 as darkness called the game.

Head coach Jonathan Davis’ team is still unbeaten in region play, but he didn’t like the defensive mistakes in the sixth inning.

“They had two hits out of the infield and they scored seven runs” said Davis. “That left our defense a little skeptic. We definitely have some things we can work on. We have got to get better on defense on the infield.”