Silverdale's Brody Lamb throws to the plate during his team's game against Knox Grace Saturday afternoon. Lamb was steady on the mound, giving up six hits and two runs while striking out five in six innings of work as the Seahawks downed the Rams to take the win, 7-3, and the DII-A East Region quarterfinal series, two games to one.
photo by Dennis Norwood
Through five innings, Silverdale’s Brody Lamb had been dealing against a Knoxville Grace team who simply could not make hard contact against the Seahawk starter. He may have only struck out four of those 15 outs, but Lamb had forced the Rams into popups, grounders, and soft line drives all game. Then came the sixth inning, when an Aiden McCarley single, an Ian Setzer double, and an Eli Crowder drive to the deepest part of the outfield produced two runs.
Out came coach Lance Rorex, who instead of pulling his pitcher, gave him some timely advice.
“He just told me to take it easy and to stop pushing it, since I had a lot of room to play with,” Lamb said. “He told me to trust my teammates and my fielders.”
After giving up one more single to Alexander Blackburn, Lamb was helped by second-baseman Turner Junkins, who made an over-the-shoulder catch in shallow center to get the second out. And then to end his night, Lamb finished the sixth inning by freezing Grace Academy first baseman Matthew Bringle on an inside pitch for strike and out number three. Closer Eric Boggess got the final three outs and sealed Silverdale’s 7-3 playoff win over the visiting Rams.
“Yesterday’s game two was a bit of a punch in the gut, ” coach Lance Rorex said about the previous day’s 9-1 defeat, “and we asked our boys if they could get back up and throw those punches. I couldn’t be more happy for our guys, and we’ve gotten back to Silverdale baseball.”
After splitting the first two playoff games, neither team’s offense did much in the first inning, but the Seahawks jumped on starter Blake Courson in the second. With Owen Philips pinch-running at third and Lamb standing on second following a double to right, up came shortstop Bryson Cline. He whacked the second pitch he saw into centerfield, and across homeplate came Philips. After nine-hitter Lane Meadows laid down a perfect sacrifice bunt, the Seahawks got themselves a 2-0 lead after two innings.
While Grace's offense floundered in front of Silverdale’s home crowd (which seemed even louder than normal since the Seahawks softball team was also playing next door), the home team seemed to feed off this energy. Center fielder Brett Rogers showed off his wheels when he slapped a single to right and then stole his way to third in rapid succession. Of course, this thrilling display of aggressive baserunning was rendered pointless after first baseman Cameron Mullins smashed a home run far above and over the right field wall to make it a 4-0 game.
“Mullins had a huge at bat and Rogers’ triple was big too in the fourth,” coach Rorex said. “Guys know their role and were able to put pressure on the basepaths.”
Knox Grace relief pitcher Trevor Lawrence took his licks too in the fourth inning. He started the inning by plunking left fielder Connor Delashmitt, who then advanced to second on a wild pitch. Meadows walked to get two on base, and then Junkins sacrificed himself to advance his teammates to second and third base. Rogers probably could have had a RBI single when he mashed a ball into center, but Grace’s fielder slipped and the ball went right past him.
In came Delashmitt and Meadows, and Rogers didn’t stop running until he dramatically slid into third with a triple. Rogers didn’t have to wait long to join his teammates in the dugout, since right fielder Sebastian Hanks lofted a ball deep into the outfield, which allowed Rogers to jog home on the sacrifice fly. With the Seahawks leading 7-0 after four innings, all the pitching staff needed to do was to not completely implode.
“At the beginning of the year it was kind of rough with lots of errors, but towards the end of the season we really improved,” Lamb said. “We’ve had a lot of people step up and do a good job.”
Knox Grace did get two runs in the sixth, and the crowd was audibly nervous when the Rams' Connor Finley singled to Junkins. The second baseman tried to throw out Riley King at third, but his toss was poor and went past the third baseman’s glove.
King was able to go home because of the error, and it looked as if the Knoxville team might have a rally in them. Boggess made sure that would not be the case, and forced a popup and groundout to end the game. Lamb’s Seahawks get Sunday off, and will play Knox Webb on Monday afternoon.
“Brody is a guy who doesn’t care about who is in the opposing dugout,” coach Rorex said. “He threw against Baylor a while back and he didn’t care. He just wants to go hunting and fishing after the game, so his mentality is that he wants the big situation. He threw strikes today and we made some good plays behind him.”
“Yeah, me and some friends are probably going fishing after this,” a laughing Lamb said after the game.
KNOX GRACE 0 0 0 0 0 2 1 – 3 7 0
SILVERDALE 0 2 2 3 0 0 X – 7 6 1
Courson, Lawrence (3) and Crowder; Lamb, Boggess (7) and Reagan
You can contact the author at Joseph.a.Dycus@gmail.com or on Twitter @joseph_dycus .