Rebels open playoffs with big win

STROM THURMOND 12, LAKE CITY 2 (5 innings)

JOHNSTON — Clinging to a 3-2 lead that was feeling slimmer by the at-bat, the Strom Thurmond baseball team needed a momentum shift.

Jud Childress gave the Rebels one with a single swing of the bat.

Childress' solo home run to lead off the bottom of the fourth inning Tuesday gave the Rebels a 4-2 lead and a little breathing room in their District V-AAA playoff opener against Lake City. They blew the game open from there, scoring eight more unanswered runs for a 12-2 win in five innings.

"The game was definitely kind of hanging in the balance right there early on," said Strom Thurmond head coach Mack Hite. "The momentum felt that they were gonna make a push and come back and win that game. But then Jud hits that ball out, and of course that lifts you up and gets our dugout excited. Everybody likes to see the ball leave the yard. Definitely gave us a shot in the arm there, so to speak, and energized the team."

Strom Thurmond, the Region 5-AAA champion and top seed in the district, plated four more runs in the bottom of the fourth. The Rebels did it all with two outs, starting with Matthew Holmes' single to right. He later scored on a wild pitch as KJ Butler – who was hit by a pitch – and Rhett Jolly – who was walked – moved into scoring position. 

Lakelan Rutland brought both of them home with a single to center field, and then he came home on Hunter Cadiere's base knock to give the Rebels an 8-2 lead.

"Really important there. A lot of two-out hitting," Hite said. "I mean, the game was a lot closer than the score indicates. We were able to have some two-out hits, get hit by a pitch, extend an inning, come up with some big hits there to kind of give us some cushion."

Jordyn Hill and Caleb Jones quickly reached – and scored – in the bottom of the fifth to put the Rebels ahead 10-2. Rutland provided the game-winner, with Holmes and Butler scoring on his hit and an errant throw home. 

Rutland, Holmes and Cadiere each had two hits for the Rebels, who were also able to preserve their pitching staff with the five-inning win. Jones went 4⅓ innings, and Cadiere came on in relief and immediately got out of the inning with a double play.

The Rebels took a 3-0 lead in the bottom of the second before Lake City, the No. 4 seed from Region 6-AAA, started to rally with a run in the third and fourth innings. The Panthers forced the Rebels into making errors by putting the ball on the ground and using their speed to turn routine ground balls into much more difficult plays in the infield.

"They do a great job of putting the ball in play on the ground and running. They put a ton of pressure on us," said Hite. "We didn't play real well with that. They're a scrappy baseball team; very, very young. Today, they came in here and were not intimidated by any means."

The Rebels drew seven walks, two of them intentional passes issued to Payton Smith, and benefited from a couple of errors, a balk, a hit batter and a wild pitch. In several cases, those were breaks the Rebels made for themselves by putting pressure on the Panthers.

Strom Thurmond has now won 11 games in a row and hosts Bluffton, 10-0 winners Tuesday over Manning, at 6 p.m. Thursday. 

"You're talking about just a few weeks of baseball here in the playoffs," Hite said. "And if you can peak and play good baseball into May, you never know what can happen."