INMAN – Blue Ridge baseball won its 15th straight ball game Tuesday night over the Chapman Panthers, 9-3.
Blue Ridge is 11-2 in Region II-AAA and 17-4 overall. The Tigers will host rival Greer, 3-8 overall, 1-6 region, Friday at 6 p.m.
“I know Greer would want nothing more than to send us into the playoffs with a loss and snap our 15-game winning streak,” Blue Ridge Head Coach Travis Henson said. “It’s always about the next game and I always say the biggest game of the season is the next game to clinch the regional championship.”
Senior pitcher Ethan Few struck out nine.
“I knew it was going to be a tough game, they got some runs early but we overcame,” Few said. “I had to make some tough pitches, but my defense helped me a lot no matter who they put on the mound.”
“We do a lot of communication at practice,” Henson said. “Because in baseball you actually have time to communicate, between each pitch, know where we’re going, know each situation, know what we’re going to do and hen you’ve got to execute it.”
Chapman scored the game’s first run but Blue Ridge went ahead 2-1 in the bottom of the third inning.
CJ Brooks led off Chapman’s fourth inning with a double and John Coker followed with an RBI double to tie the game.
Blue Ridge put the game out of reach scored six runs in the fifth and sixth innings against three Chapman pitchers.
“We really got going to come back the next inning,” Henson said. “From there, Jacob Wilbanks had a big double and when it was 5-2 we had two strikes and one out with runners on second and third and Few hit a double into right center to score both those guys.
Brandon Southern and Jeremy Collins brought in the final two runs for the team in the top of the sixth and seventh, respectively.