Sumter wallops Manning-Santee 18-0 in five innings

MANNING - After losing two of three games and suffering through an uncharacteristically sloppy start in the field in Tuesday's 8-4 League III loss to Hartsville, Sumter's Senior American Legion baseball team took out its frustrations on Manning-Santee Wednesday in the form of an 18-0, 5-inning beatdown at the Manning High School field.

A night after giving up five runs on four errors in the first inning of the loss to Hartsville, Sumter came out the aggressor with five runs of its own in the top of the opening inning. The difference from the previous night was, rather than benefiting from errors in the field, the P-15 batters were just hitting the cover off the ball against five Post 68 pitchers to the tune of 13 hits, including five for extra bases.

"We swung the bats pretty well, that's for sure," said Sumter head coach Curtis Johnson, whose team improved to 4-2 overall and 4-1 in league play. "We just tried to go out and play well. We wanted to string a clean game together (after committing six errors in the Hartsville loss) and play well, and our guys had a good approach and they did a good job. It's one of those things where you don't think about losing two out of three. You think about what's the task in front of us right now and how can we come out on the right side of that."

Post 68 head coach Spencer Jordan could only praise Sumter for its complete effort in the blowout win.

"Give Sumter some credit. They overcame some adversity from last night, and certainly I know Coach Johnson has got to be proud of the effort they received tonight," said Jordan, whose team dropped to 3-5 overall and 0-3 in league play, with two of those losses coming to Sumter. "I've got to give them a lot of credit, on how they swung the bats tonight and, of course, their execution was outstanding. I wish I could say that we performed to par, but unfortunately we did not. Maybe I need to do a better job of preparing our team for big games. That might become our recipe for success, just being more focused and more intense, because obviously when we got down tonight we lost a lot of focus and intensity, and against a good team."

Chandler Hunter drew a leadoff walk against Post 68 starter Sandy Johnson before a Lathan Todd double, Ryan Moore single and Daulton Dabbs triple, along with a wild pitch from Johnson, helped to stake Sumter to its 5-0 lead.

M-S managed to get two on in the bottom of the first against Sumter starter Rylan Williamson as Braydon Osteen reached on the P-15's only error of the night and Luke Stokes singled to left, but Williamson struck out Justin Evans to end the threat.

Sumter sent 13 batters to the plate in the second while plating eight runs to stretch its lead to 13-0. Corey Blackley had two hits in the frame, a leadoff double and a 1-out infield single, scoring after his double, as three Post 68 pitchers took to the mound before finally closing out the inning.

Sandy Johnson lasted just one full inning, exiting after failing to retire any of the first four batters he faced in the second. His final line included two strikeouts, four walks, six hits and nine runs allowed.

Chandler Evans, the first M-S reliever called upon by Post 68 head coach Spencer Jordan, did not fare much better than starter Johnson. Evans allowed three inherited runners to score and all four batters than Evans faced came around to score before Jake Jordan came on to finally end the inning, recording all three outs.

Jake Jordan would record one more out in the third before giving way to Jonathan Baltzeger on the mound as Sumter pushed its lead to 16-0 with three in that frame. Baltzeger was responsible for two of the three runs in the Sumter third, walking four and hitting two in his 1 2/3 innings of work.

Taylor Lee pitched the final inning for M-S, giving up the game's final two runs after issuing a walk to Trent Frye and surrendering singles to Hunter and Tray Yates. In scoring the 17th Sumter run of the night, Frye was the last of the P-15's starting nine to cross home plate.

"We've got to get better pitching, top to bottom from start to finish," Coach Jordan said. "It was not Sandy's night. Still, we have to do a better job of responding in our half of the first inning. Nonetheless, I'll take the blame for us not being as prepared as we should have been tonight. Hopefully we'll execute a little bit better tomorrow night (Thursday) when we play Lake City."

While Post 68's pitchers struggled throughout on Wednesday, Sumter got a strong effort from Williamson and Charlton Commander, who came on to pitch the final two innings. Williamson struck out five, walked one and allowed just two singles in his three innings of work while M-S managed just a base on balls and a single off Commander, who recorded four of his six outs on strikeouts.

Ryan Moore continued to hit the ball well for the P-15's, finishing a home run shy of the cycle with three runs scored and two runs batted in. Hunter and Jacob Holladay also scored three times apiece, with both reaching on a walk and two singles.

Curtis Johnson said he was not surprised by the character his team displayed on Wednesday in its strong response to adversity.

"You expect that (type of response)," Johnson said. "We've got a bunch of older guys, and you expect them to have that mentality because they're older and they've been around, so I wasn't really surprised with that. I felt like they were going to come out and play well, but you just never know how the ball is going to bounce sometimes. It bounced our way tonight and we played well, so hopefully we can keep it together. Our goal is to try to start a streak and see how many we can win in a row."