Terrell Academy baseball tops Westwood

CAMILLA — Terrell Academy took a 6-2 region win over the Westwood Wildcats Thursday afternoon behind a strong pitching performance from Jared Donalson.

Donalson struck out 10 and gave up only two hits in a complete-game performance for the Eagles. Both Westwood hits were in the first inning.

Donaldson also had a triple in the fourth inning that scored two runs. The win improved Terrell’s season record to 3-4 and evened their region record at 2-2.

Though the Eagles led most of the game, it didn’t start out well. Westwood jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the first.

Senior shortstop Kevin Hall started things off for the Wildcats with a triple to right field, then scored on a single by Collier Baggett that went just under the glove of the Eagles’ shortstop. The Wildcats scored again when Westwood catcher Tanner Stanaland hit a roller back to the pitcher’s mound, but the Eagles failed to get an out.

But in the second inning, the Eagles started to battle back against Westwood starter Morgan Bell.

Matt Holbrook got a walk and scored on a single by Cody Lewis. After Lewis stole second, he scored on a single by William Chambliss and the game was tied at 2. Chambliss tried to score from second on a single to center by Zeb Waters, but Baggett hit Stanaland at the plate with a strong throw and the catcher tagged him out.

In total, the Eagles piled up 11 hits on four different Wildcat pitchers and took advantage of three Westwood errors. All of the Eagles’ hits were singles, except for a double in the third inning from Gabe Carlton that scored the third Eagle run and the triple by Donalson that scored two runs in the fourth.

“Jared pitched really well,” Terrell coach Ashley Walker. “He did exactly what he need to do. He threw a lot of strikes and didn’t walk very many.”

With his team now 3-4 on the season and even in the region, Walker believes his team is improving.

“We haven’t reached our potential yet,” Walker said. “We are a relatively young team and we play well when we play relaxed. In those moments where we have to come up big, we tend to tense up and don’t play as well as we can. When we relax we play well. Today we played relaxed.”