Knights thump Beach

Published 9:50 pm Friday, April 15, 2016

Suffolk Christian Academy’s baseball team has now twice demonstrated the ability to put together an explosive inning that drives it to a blowout victory.

The Beach Breakers, a Hampton Roads Athletic Conference rival, have been the victims both times.

On Thursday, the Knights generated a burst of 10 runs in the third inning to help them defeat Beach 15-3 in five innings, a mere nine days after producing an avalanche of 16 runs in the seventh to top the Breakers 28-7.

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“We played really well,” Suffolk Christian assistant coach Scott Cornette said of Thursday’s road game. “We continued to hit well against this team.”

In the teams’ first meeting, the host Breakers committed 14 errors.

On Thursday, “Beach did a much, much better job of controlling the errors,” Cornette said. “But they still had some costly ones.”

At one point during SCA’s big third inning, a Knights player singled with a couple of runners on base.

“When he hit the single, the ball got by the right fielder, and it cleared the bases,” Cornette said, noting it was “the dreaded three-base error.”

The Breakers limited their errors to five on Thursday, while Suffolk Christian had two.

“Our errors were costly, as well, but they came when the game was obviously not in question,” Cornette said. Not settling for that as the standard, though, he added, “We definitely need to work on that as a team.”

“For this game, I believe it was the hitting that caused for such a lopsided score,” Cornette said, as the Knights out-hit Beach 16-4 on Thursday.

SCA senior Michael Cornette pitched for three innings and improved his record on the mound this season to 2-2. He threw five strikeouts and gave up only one unearned run, two hits and a walk.

Freshman Austin Aydlett relieved Cornette, pitching the last two innings of the mercy rule-shortened contest. He threw four strikeouts and allowed one walk, two hits and two unearned runs.

The game was tied 1-1 after the first inning, the Knights went up 11-1 after the third and added their last four runs in the fifth.

Suffolk Christian eighth-grader Alex Feeney went 4-for-5 with one triple, three singles, two runs batted in and two runs scored. Senior Steven Porter was 3-for-4 with two doubles, a single, two RBIs and three runs scored, and junior Harrison Judy went 3-for-4 with a double, two singles, four RBIs and two runs scored.

Knights sophomores Patrick Driggers and Noah Coggeshall had two hits apiece.

SCA seventh-grader George Rennie had only one at-bat, but he made the most of it, producing a single, an RBI and a run scored.

“He came off the bench for us when we had a player leave due to injury,” Scott Cornette said.

Suffolk Christian (3-2, 3-1) faces Beach again on Tuesday, this time at home. The Knights then host Summit Christian Academy on Thursday.