Camden tops error-prone Rock Hill

Rock Hill’s American Legion baseball team, the upper state No.1 seed, made an inauspicious debut on Saturday at the state tournament held at Riley Park, committing 10 errors in an 11-6 loss to lower state No. 4 seed Camden.

“The thing is, I don’t know if we’ve made 10 errors total, all season, through our first 19 games,” said first-year Rock Hill head coach Jeremy McCoy, whose team fell to 16-4 heading into a noon elimination game today against Inman, a 15-1 loss to Chapin/Newberry. “We’re usually pretty sound defensively, so that definitely hurt.”

Camden plated three runs in the top of first inning without the benefit of a hit. Rock Hill starting pitcher Josh Alley walked three, including one with the bases loaded. Two more batters reached on errors, with one resulting in Post 17’s second run and a Christian Flick sacrifice fly plating the third run.

“To start off the game with an error, that kind of set the tone early,” McCoy said. “Very unfortunate, and also, too, Josh Alley has been our horse for most of the year and he just didn’t have it today. Sometimes you just don’t have it, you’ve got to battle through it and that’s where we stand.”

Rock Hill tied the score in its half of the second thanks to a trio of singles from Alley, Brandon Banks and Luke Gibson. A bases-loaded walk to Tyler Jordan brought home Alley, then a Brandon Ashley single up the middle sent Banks and Gibson across home plate before a Will Gardner fly ball to center ended the frame.

Post 17 retook the lead with two runs in the top of the third, also getting its first three hits of the game. Josh Hernandez singled, but was out at second on a Bradwin Salmond fielder’s choice. Salmond advanced to second after Devin Beckley was hit by an Alley pitch and took third as Beckley was thrown out at second on the back end of an attempted double steal. Salmond came home on a Russ Hough double to left.

Flick made it 5-3 with a single that scored Hough and hasten3e Alley’s mound exit with a line of three hits, five walks and two strikeouts in 3 2/3 innings.

Camden head coach Tyler Pike said his team’s success bunting the ball put excessive pressure on Post 34, leading to many of its defensive troubles.

“We laid down more bunts in this game than we probably have all year together, and we executed,” said Pike, whose team improved to 14-8 heading into a 7 p.m. matchup today against Chapin/Newberry. “We haven’t been executing all year, and when you do that kind of stuff and put pressure on them, it’s tough to make some of these plays. But thank God we were able to capitalize on some of them.”

Camden added four more runs in the fourth on three hits and two errors. A Beckley double plated Nick Butler, who reached on an error, and Hernandez, who had singled. Sacrifice flies from Hough and Flick brought home Salmond, who bunted his way on, and Beckley for a 9-3 lead.

Rock Hill scored twice in the fifth after Dow walked the last two batters he would face. Alley doubled to left to score Gardner and Cameron Smith, cutting the Post 17 lead to 9-5.

The teams both got on the board in the eighth, with Camden taking advantage of three Rock Hill errors and two singles to put up two for an 11-5 lead. Salmond had an RBI single to score Butler, who reached on an error, with Salmond coming around to score Post 17’s final run.

Alley closed the scoring with a line-drive home run over the left-field fence in the bottom of the frame.

Pike said the mound efforts of Dow and T.J. White helped to get Camden’s pitching back on track after play-in wins over Murrell’s Inlet and Horry on Tuesday and Wednesday.

“Being that we had to have this play-in game on Wednesday, we used some of our bigger arms,” Pike said. “They needed rest and we had guys that came through for us and stepped up big-time when we needed them to. That’s a tribute to those two boys (Dow and White) just coming in and throwing strikes.”