Soddy Daisy Rallies To Beat Red Bank In Non-District Baseball

Zach Keller Gets Win In Relief As Trojans Prevail, 12-5

  • Friday, April 13, 2012
  • John Hunt
Jared and Laura Hensley's son, Kolton, weighed in at 9 pounds, 7 ounces.
Jared and Laura Hensley's son, Kolton, weighed in at 9 pounds, 7 ounces.

The Soddy Daisy Trojans and the Red Bank Lions are no longer district rivals, but you can bet your last dollar that emotions still ride high when these two teams meet in any kind of athletic event.

Neither team is having the kind of season they would like, although both are right in the thick of their respective district races -- Red Bank in 6-AA and Soddy Daisy in 5-AAA.

Soddy Daisy won the first game of the series Thursday night at Soddy Daisy and the Trojans made it a clean sweel with a 12-5 victory Friday night at Red Bank.

Jared Hensley, who was the pitching coach for the Lions before taking the head coaching job at Soddy Daisy four years ago, had a smile on his face long before the first pitch was made.  And Hensley, who must hold the high school record for the longest post-game talks with his players, was quick and to the point Friday night.

His wife Laura just gave birth to their second son on Thursday -- Kolton, who weighed in at nine pounds, seven ounces -- so Jared had greater priorities to deal with than just a baseball game.

"I know we aren't in the same district any more, but it's still a nice, friendly rivalry," Hensley said after his team had improved to 12-10 overall.

"For us to have won last night and to come back and win again here tonight is a good thing.  They made a few mistakes that we took advantage of, but we also had a few timely hits.

"Zach Keller was awesome in relief.  He came in there and shut them down when it looked like they might come back," Hensley added as he headed for the parking lot.

Red Bank coach Trey Hicks would be the first to tell you that his young team has been struggling a lot at the plate lately.

The Lions had nine hits total in three losses this week and they only got three more on Friday, but Hicks was upbeat and optimistic that things were beginning to get better.

"I know you can't tell it with us just getting three hits tonight, but we swung the bats a whole lot better than we have earlier this week, especially with two strikes.  It was an interesting game.  Their pitcher struggled early as we scored three runs in the first inning without a hit.

"Raunel Perez pitched well for us early, but errors hurt us.  We needed to do a lot of things right to beat a team like Soddy Daisy, but they are the best team Raunel has faced this year.  We don't have any depth this year and that's killing us.  We're physically tired right now," Hicks said after his team fell to 10-11 with their fourth straight loss.

Soddy Daisy scored two in the first inning with just one hit. 

Andy Wright led off with a single and went to second on a passed ball.  Jake Leffew reached on a swinging third strike that got past the catcher with Wright going to third before Leffew stole second.

Haydyn Bailey then hit a bouncer to third, but Gage Winton made a bad throw to the plate in an attempt to get Wright and both runs scored.

Perez then struck out the next two and officially had four strikeouts in the first inning alone. He finished with nine in 3.2 innings of work.

Red Bank countered with three runs in the bottom of the first as they batted around without getting a hit.

Soddy Daisy pitcher Tyler Westmoreland had location problems as he walked six in the inning.  Ryder Pierce, who led off with a walk, later scored on a wild pitch while Tyler Phillips and Winton both scored on a bases-loaded walk to Perez and a fielder's choice by Blake Turner.

How do you explain five runs in the first inning with one hit between the two teams?  Granted, it was Friday the 13th, but there were no black cats at the park.

It was more like a normal baseball game after that.

The Trojans took the lead for good with three runs in the third before adding three in the fourth and three more in the fifth.  Then they tacked on one more in the seventh for an even dozen runs.

There were a couple of key hits for both teams along the way and both happened in the fourth inning.

Soddy Daisy first baseman Austin Smith blooped a two-run triple into the corner in right while Red Bank's Phillips had a two-run double to deep left

Westmoreland was replaced by Keller after walking eight in two innings.  He allowed those three runs in the first, but didn't allow a hit.

Keller earned the win with five strong innings where he allowed two runs on three hits while striking out 10.  He also walked four.

The Trojans finished with seven hits.

Rogers was the only Soddy Daisy player with two while Wright, Leffew, Bailey, Smith and Christian Amos all had one apiece.

While Phillips had the big blow for Red Bank with the two-run double, Pierce had a single in the fourth while Blake Winstead had a single in the fifth.

Red Bank will be at home again on Monday hosting district foe Brainerd while Soddy Daisy hits 75-North for a key game at Walker Valley on Monday.  Both teams will be involved in the Trojan Classic, which begins at several locations on Thursday.

SODDY DAISY  203 330 1 -- 12 7 1

RED BANK        300 200 0 -- 5 3 5

Westmoreland, Keller (3) and Ricketts; Perez, Goodman (4), Winton (6) and Phillips.

(Email John Hunt at nomarathonmoose@comcast.net)

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