Churchland sweeps King’s Fork

Published 8:25 pm Saturday, April 10, 2010

Churchland completed a two-game sweep over King’s Fork on the baseball diamond Saturday with an easy, five-inning 12-2 win at King’s Fork.

On Wednesday afternoon, as the Truckers and Bulldogs played this non-district series over both of their spring breaks, big innings early in the game allowed Churchland to go on to a 10-5 win despite KF scoring chances in the last three innings.

Churchland again used strong hitting, along with a couple gifts from the Bulldogs, to score five times in the first inning Saturday. Unlike the contest at Churchland though, the Bulldogs couldn’t put a serious threat together to get back into the game.

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“We have the capability to win and we’ve told them that all year,” said King’s Fork head coach J.B. Varney. The Bulldogs proved that ability in Southeastern District wins over Lakeland and Oscar Smith. In the two games this week though, Varney said his squad did too much to take itself out of the games.

“We have to have self-discipline at the plate. Everyone wanted to swing at high pitches today, and until we break them of that, we’ll just keep getting into holes we can’t get out of,” Varney said.

“Today, guys would look at the first pitch, a good strike right there, then swing at bad pitches,” Varney said.

In the Trucker first, King’s Fork and starting pitcher Tyler Carpenter came within an out of holding the Truckers to one run.

Instead, a Churchland single made it 3-0 and the inning snowballed on the home side from there.

A hit-by-pitch, an error on a grounder that should’ve ended the inning and a walk, combined with a wild pitch, made it 5-0 Churchland and the end of Carpenter’s day on the mound.

J.T. Wilson entered for Carpenter and ended the inning two batters later. Wilson held Churchland scoreless in the next two innings, but KF’s offense couldn’t capitalize. The only spark early on was a two-out double, a liner into right-center field, by Michael Byrd in the second inning.

Churchland strung five straight singles together and sent 12 batters up to the plate in all in a six-run fourth inning against Wilson.

The Bulldogs broke up the shutout in the bottom of the fourth. Daniel Gromkoski scored on a two-out balk.