Top-ranked Schley County rolls past Baconton

BACONTON — In a battle of two of the state’s highest-rated Class A public school teams, the Schley County Wildcats scored seven times in the fourth inning to blow open a tie game and beat the Baconton Blazers 12-1 Tuesday afternoon in Baconton.

The loss snapped a 10-game winning streak for Baconton, who hadn’t lost loss since falling 9-8 at Class AAAA Worth County on Feb. 22.

After Schley grabbed the lead, the game was then dominated by Schley County pitching as the Blazers failed to produce any more offense until the bottom of the seventh.

In fact, three Wildcat pitchers struck out 19. Schley County is the defending Class A state champion and now has an 18-2 record on the season and is the top-ranked team in the Georgia Dugout Preview Magazine Class A public school poll. The loss for the Blazers was only the second of the year as they fell to 13-2.

Before the fourth inning, the game was tied with both teams scoring a run in the first inning. In the bottom of the third, the Blazers threatened to take the lead when shortstop Taber Raley walked and then got to third on a double by Brantley Morgan. But two strike outs followed and the Blazers left them stranded.

The top of the fourth is where things fell apart for the Blazers. An infield hit and a deep fly ball that sailed over the head of Morgan and things unraveled as the Wildcats sent 11 batters to the plate. The Wildcats had five hits in the inning, including two doubles and also capitalized on two errors and two wild pitches.

Baconton freshman pitcher Stone Pinson came on in relief of starter Will Bush in the middle of the fourth inning and held the Wildcats to just two more runs until the top of the seventh when Schley scored three times, with two of those runs coming on a deep homerun over the left field fence.

The Blazers will travel to Ocilla today to battle Irwin County at 5 p.m.