Carrollton captures regional baseball win over Lincolnwood 8-5, moves to title game
RAYMOND - It’s playoff time and that means any way you can win to stay alive will do just fine.
Get The Latest News!
Don't miss our top stories and need-to-know news everyday in your inbox.
The Carrollton Hawks outlasted the Lincolnwood Lancers 8-5 in Raymond on Wednesday afternoon.
Carrollton moves on to the regional finals and will play Bunker Hill, who defeated Mount Olive 16-2 after the Carrollton game.
The Hawks previously beat the Minutemen on May 2, winning 3-0.
“We feel good about the win,” Carrollton head coach Greg Pohlman said. “We haven’t played since last Friday where we took a loss (6-3 against Calhoun). We couldn’t find a game on Saturday, Monday, and Tuesday, so we knew we would kind of struggle.”
Blake Struble threw 5.2 innings giving up five runs and five hits, while striking out seven and walking five.
“He pitched a heck of a game,” Pohlman said.
The stats may not show it, but Struble got out of trouble when he absolutely needed to for the entire game.
“He pitched his way out of a few innings then made some good defensive plays,” Pohlman said.
Struble also had a productive day at the plate going 2-for-2 with two singles and two walks.
Jacob Lovel was 3-for-4 with three RBI and Jeremy Watson went 2-for-3 at the plate.
Lincolnwood was the away team despite playing on their home turf and they struck first with an RBI double in the top of the first inning.
Carrollton immediately hit back in the bottom half of the inning when Nathan Walker scored on a past ball from third base to level it up at 1-1.
In the second inning for the Hawks, Lovel knocked an RBI single to left field that scored Struble.
Later in the inning the Hawks loaded the bases for Walker and managed to hit an RBI sacrifice fly, but Carrollton did no further damage in the inning.
That was a recurring theme for the Hawks as they ended up stranding 11 men on base.
“We hit well. We just didn’t get the big hits with runners on and that happens,” Pohlman said. “We played last Friday and the same thing happened.” Today we hit the ball harder and still feel we’re going to be a team to be reckoned with.”
The following inning, the Lancers made Carrollton pay by blasting a two-run home run to knot it up at 3-3.
However, the Hawks responded in the bottom of the fourth when Lovel came through again with another RBI single.
Jones did so as well as he laced an RBI single into center field to give the Hawks a 5-3 lead.
The bases were loaded again for Walker and again he came through by virtue of a walk to make it 6-3.
Kolten Bottom came up and smacked a line drive to left field, but the Lancer left fielder made a game saving, diving catch to rob Bottom.
Lincolnwood caught some fire with that clutch catch and scored two more runs in the top of the fifth to narrow the Hawks lead to 6-5.
Carrollton went quietly in the fifth and held off a Lincolnwood threat in the top of sixth when Bottom was called in and struck out a batter to end the inning.
The Hawks got two vital insurance runs in the bottom of the sixth with another bases loaded walk and an RBI single from Lovel again.
After getting the first two batters out, Lincolnwood put their next two batters on base to bring the tying run to the plate, but Bottom struck him out to win it.
“I had all the confidence in the world on Kolten,” Pohlman said. “He can throw strikes, can throw curveballs, and he has confidence.”
Still a win’s a win in the playoffs and the 26-5 Hawks will be moving on to fight another day.
“I’m tickled to death that we’re still playing on Saturday. That’s what the key is,” Polhman said. “We didn’t play the best game in the world, but who cares, we won.”
More like this:
- Most Popular
- Top Stories
- Most Recent
