North Augusta baseball started the week off by shutting out Aiken 10-0 in five innings on Monday night.
The Jackets scored in all but one inning and capitalized on errors, aggressive baserunning and base hitting.
“We're definitely trending in the right direction, said Jackets head coach Kevin Lynn. “We're winning the games that we feel like we should be winning and doing the little things that we need to be doing to win those types of games. And any type of win in a region game is big, and I'm happy that we're off to the start that we're off to.”
Jaxon Jean started for North Augusta on the mound, holding the Hornets to three hits with no walks and 11 strikeouts. Jean also saw success at the plate on Monday, leading the team with three RBIs on one hit.
“He's been doing that for four years now,” Lynn said. “Anytime we need him to come out and give us a game where he's carrying the load, we fully expect that from him every time out. And we know that if we can scratch a couple of runs across, we got a great chance to win the baseball game because it's going to be hard for teams to scratch runs across on him.”
Scoring started for the Jackets in the second inning as Dawson Campbell hit an inside-the-park home run with a hit to left field. There was no play on the ball since it was unclear if it had rolled foul, but with no call from the umpires, Campbell rounded the bases.
The Jackets loaded the bases after an error, a walk and a hit-by pitch from Aiken pitcher Cole Harmon. Jean tripled to score every runner and extended North Augusta’s lead to four.
Gavin Caldwell scored on a catching error in the third inning while Gavin McNair scored on a sacrifice fly in the fourth to add two more runs to the Jackets' total.
North Augusta had another big inning in the fifth, loading the bases again after a hit-by-pitch and two singles. Brodie Chapman scored on a fielder’s choice while a single from Brigs Watkins scored the other two runners on the next at-bat. McNair scored again on a wild pitch to end the game by run rule.
Lynn stressed the importance of putting runs on the board to support Jean so he doesn’t have to pitch out of tight situations in close games.
“We're putting up run support for him,” he said. “And when you got your ace on the mound with a big lead, you always feel good about that.”
Aiken did not get any momentum throughout the game, only getting a runner in scoring position twice and never moving a runner past second. Harmon allowed 10 runs on eight hits with one walk, five errors and four strikeouts. Tanner Padgett, Hunter Rarey, Tyler Tindall and Reed McLain each had a hit, with Rarey's being a double.
North Augusta improves to 4-0 in Region 4-AAAA while Aiken drops to 0-4. Both teams will play two more games against each other this week with game two in Aiken on Wednesday and game three back in North Augusta on Friday.
