Published: May 13, 2008 01:06 am            

Blue Shirts down Rock 4-2

Somerset — After losing four straight games in four uninspiring efforts, Southwestern baseball coach Rod McAninch was looking for anything to get his struggling team’s attention.

And after he told his team they didn’t deserve to wear the Southwestern Warrior uniform after a 11-1 drubbing by Harrison County on Saturday, McAninch followed up his statement by not allowing his team to wear team jerseys in their 12th Region match-up against Rockcastle County on Monday at Southwestern High School.

No numbers.

No team name.

No logo.

Just blue shirts.

And it seemed to work, as the Southwestern Blue Shirts downed Rockcastle 4-2.

“The blue shirts were probably a ‘half-baked’ idea of mine, but we played horrible this weekend and I felt like we didn’t deserve to wear anything that said ‘Southwestern’ on it, and we didn’t,” McAninch said. “I told these guys that they would have to earn the right to wear that name on their jersey and today I thought maybe we played one of our best games of the year.”

“I can’t say we played good because of our jerseys, but it is that time of the year when you’ve got to find that kind of intensity,” McAninch added. “We are going to wear the blue shirts (in our next game) and see where it takes us.”

With Rockets’ standout lefty hurler Tanner Perkins on the mound, the Warriors had only five hits and struck out 10 times. However, the Blue Shirts made the most of their two offensive opportunities to come away with the big win. Also, Southwestern sophomore Isaac Claywell turned in a good showing on the mound in 6 1/3 innings of work.

“We needed to get back to basics and tonight I thought we did —we caught , we hit and we did all the little things and we executed real well,” McAninch said. “Perkins is probably one of the best pitchers in the region and we adjusted to him in the later innings and that was good to see. That is what you’ve got to do against a pitcher of that caliber, because you are surely not going to beat him to death.”

Down 2-1 going into the bottom half of the sixth inning, Southwestern was able to play some solid small ball to sting Perkins for three runs off three hits. Tyler Mayer led the inning off with a walk and advanced all the way to third base on an Aaron Hampton infield bunt. Then, T.T. Wooldridge singled to centerfield to score Mayer. Josh Wilson tagged a double to right center and Claywell was intentionally walked to load the bases. Tyler Blair doubled to right center to score Wooldridge and Daniel Gooch (pinch running for Wilson) to put the Blue Shirts up 4-2.

After reaching his pitch count with one out in the seventh inning, Claywell handed the ball over to Tyler Blair on the mound. Blair struck out the final two batters, which included a huge ‘K’ to Perkins for the last out with the bases loaded.

“I was real happy with (Isaac) Claywell,” McAninch said. “He had a rough start in his last game against South Laurel, but today he took his time and got ready in the bullpen before the game and made sure all his stuff was working. He’s a young kid and I would like to see him become the caliber of pitcher that Tanner Perkins is today. Also, (Tyler) Blair came in relief and did a good job, and had a big 2-RBI hit in the sixth.”

The Blue Shirts struck early in the game with a run in the bottom of the first inning when Mayer scored off a Josh Wilson sacrifice bunt deep in the infield.

Besides the fact that the Rockets stranded three base runners in their last at bats, Rockcastle’s only other inning they made any offensive noise was in the fourth inning when they plated their only two runs off a sacrifice fly and a double steal play. The Blue Shirts avoided further damage when Mayer made a diving catch at second base to end with inning with a ground out and two Rocket runners stranded.

Southwestern (17-13) travels to Clinton County today.



RC 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 — 2 6 0

SW 1 0 0 0 0 3 x — 4 5 3

2B — Wilson, Blair. RBI — Wilson, Wooldridge, Blair 2. WP — Claywell. LP — Perkins.

        

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