CLEVELAND, Tenn. – Bradley Central wrapped up its regular season on Tuesday with an 8-1 non-district baseball victory over Knoxville West at Toby McKenzie Baseball Complex.
In their final tune-up for the District 5-3A tournament that starts on Wednesday at Cleveland High School, the Bears improved to 23-6 and rode the five-hit pitching of Jacob Moses (3-2) to the impressive win over West (23-8) on senior night.
The top-seeded Bears have a bye into the tournament semifinals and an automatic berth in the Region 3-3A tourney and won’t play in the district until Friday when they’ll take on the team that comes out of early games on Wednesday and Thursday.
Fourth-seeded East Hamilton plays No. 7 McMinn County on Wednesday at 5 p.m. and No. 5 Cleveland takes on No. 5 Walker Valley at 8 p.m.
The winners of those games play each other on Thursday at 7 p.m. for the right to play Bradley Central in the best-of-three series starting Friday. No. 2 Soddy-Daisy plays No. 3 Ooltewah in the other best-of-three series.
Against West, the Bears broke the game open with a seven-run second inning, highlighted by Kylar Lynn’s two-run single, his second hit of the game. Brandon Thompson also had a run-scoring hit in the inning.
Lynn went 2 for 3, as did Thompson, who also scored a run.
Cason Still added a RBI double and Hunter James had a RBI hit and scored once.
Boxscore
Knoxville West 100 000 0 -- 1 5 1
Bradley Central 070 001 x -- 8 8 0
WP -- Jacob Moses (3-2); Chase Marine.
(Contact Larry Fleming at larryfleming44@gmail.com and on Twitter @larryfleming44)