Kolby Phillips’ single in ninth helps Lee County beat Tift County

LEESBURG — Lee County’s Kolby Phillips felt disrespected.

In the bottom of the ninth inning with the game tied at one and the winning run on second base, Tift County intentionally walked the Trojans’ No. 4 hitter, Malik Spratling. Phillips, the next batter, made the Blue Devils pay with a walk-off single to left field to score Josh Hatcher, giving Lee a 2-1 region victory Tuesday night.

The win makes the Trojans 13-1 and a 4-0 mark in region play and they currently hold a one-game lead over Colquitt County in Region 1-AAAAAA. Lee County beat the Packets 5-3 last Friday in Moultrie.

“I felt a little bit disrespected,” Phillips said. “Malik was struggling tonight, but everybody struggles. When they did that, they were scared of him. It kind of disrespected me.”

For the first five innings, it looked like one run might be enough to win. Tift squeaked a lone run in during the fourth inning and the lead held until the sixth.

After registering just two hits off Tift ace Connor Thomas through the first five innings, the Trojans broke through in the sixth on a weird play.

With a runner on second base and two outs, Garet Morrell hit a grounder to shortstop. The ball was dropped at first and Landon Cooper alertedly came around to knot it at one.

Tyler Goff started the game for Lee and went five innings, giving up the one run on just two hits. He also struck out six. He was relieved by Josh Hatcher, who went the final four innings and earned the victory.

Hatcher got in a jam in the eighth after two Tift singles but got two groundouts to keep it tied.

“We’ve had a lot of games decided late in the game recently,” Lee coach Brandon Brock said. “I just told them to stay with themselves and it may take twelve innings or it may take eight innings.”

The Georgia Tech-bound Thomas pitched eight innings and gave up just two hits. He struck out five while walking just one.

Lee finished the game with four hits while Tift had six.

“Even though we only had four hits, we had some quality at-bats. ,” Brock said. “We were able to see some pitches from him. He lives on 65-75 pitch complete games. We just forced some higher counts.”

Tyler Simon, Cooper, Hatcher and Phillips each had singles for Lee. Cooper also swiped two bases.