Jackets sweep Sumter County
Jeff Davis High swept a 3-game series with Sumter County last week to improve to 10-5 overall and 5-1 in Region 1-AA.
The Jackets opened the series with a 21-6, 5-inning win in Americus and won a pair of games Friday in Hazlehurst, 16-1 in three innings and 8-0.
Jacket head coach Paul Glass gave top pitchers Alex Mason and Duke Stone the week off to rest their arms and give his young pitchers and senior Cason Clance some playing time on the mound.
Sophomore Andrew White started in Tuesday’s opener with sophomore Jonathan Bohannon pitching three innings in relief, sophomore Colby Beach started Friday’s opener and threw a 3-inning no-hitter, and Clance took the mound in Friday’s nightcap with sophomore Eli Saunders throwing three innings in relief.
Monday’s opener included a second inning defensive collapse by the Jackets as the Panthers scored six unearned runs with only one hit. The JD defense committed four errors in the inning.
Jeff Davis jumped out to a quick, 8-0 lead before Sumter cut the score to 8-6 in the bottom of the second.
But the Panthers never got any closer as the Jackets steadily pulled away thanks to hot Jacket bats, free passes and Panther errors. Jeff Davis scored in every inning as the game turned into a rout, keyed by Mason’s fifth inning grand slam home run.
Meanwhile, Bohannon took the mound in the third and retired all nine batters he faced in three innings, eight by strikeout as he struck out the side in the third and fifth innings.
The Jackets banged out 17 hits, four for extra bases, and five Jackets had multiple hits.
Mason had a pair of singles, a grand slam and five RBI. Eli Saunders had a pair of singles, a triple and four RBI, Ethan Griffin had a single, a double and three RBI, Carter Mullis singled twice and drove in two runs, Clance had a pair of singles and an RBI, Stone doubled and drove in two runs, and Bohannon, Ethan Picanso, Hayden Turner and Tre Rea each added singles.
White picked up the win, going two innings and giving up six unearned runs on just one hit, a walk, a hit batter and five strikeouts. Bohannon did not allow a baserunner in three innings on the mound and struck out eight.
In Friday’s opener, the Panthers scored a run without a hit in the first inning as Beach walked the second batter he faced, and a stolen base and a wild 3rd-strike pitch got the run across the plate.
It didn’t take the Jackets long to erase Sumter’s 1-0 lead with three runs in the bottom of the first, two of which came on Griffin’s 2-run double.
The Jackets blew the game open in the second with a 10-run inning as the Jackets teed off on the slow-throwing Panther pitcher. JD got eight straight hits and 10 overall, four for extra bases including back-to-back triples by Griffin and Stone. Mason and Saunders both doubled. Mason and Saunders both had two hits in the inning.
Beach allowed only one Sumter baserunner after the first inning with a third inning walk on a 3-2 count.
The Jackets ended the game by the run rule in the third as Griffin, Tre Rea and Turner all singled with Turner’s single scoring a run and an error allowing two more runs to score to make it 16-1.
Turner and Griffin were both 3-for-3 with three RBI. Turner had a trio of singles and Griffin singled, doubled and tripled. Mason and Picanso both had two hits with one of Mason’s hits going for two bases. Mason had two RBI. Beach, Stone and Mullis each had a hit and an RBI with Stone’s hit being a triple, Saunders doubled, and Rea singled.
Beach’s no-hitter came with two walks and seven strikeouts.
In the final game of the series, the hot Jacket bats cooled down a bit as they got only five hits and Mason’s solo homer was the only hit that went for extra bases. The pitching continued to be almost flawless as Clance and Saunders combined for a 1-hit shutout.
Mason’s solo blast just inside the left field foul pole came with two outs in the first inning. Saunders reached on an error in the second inning, stole second and scored thanks to a pair of wild pitches.
Two singles, two errors and two wild pitches got three more runs on the board in the third
and then a Holden Ellis single upped the score to 6-0.
Jeff Davis made it 7-0 in the fourth as Braydon Lolley was hit by a pitch, got to third on two wild pitches and scored on a Rea ground out,
The fifth inning was the only inning in the 3-game series that the Jackets did not score.
A Clance single and three more wild pitches accounted for the Jackets’ final run.
Mason’s homer was the only extra-base hit, Stone had a single and two RBI, Ellis had a single and one RBI, and Clance and Picanso both singled.
Clance was the winning pitcher, going four innings and giving up one hit, walking three and fanning six. Saunders did not allow a hit and only two runners reached base, one on a dropped third strike and the other on an error. He retired the last seven batters he faced, and had six strikeouts.
Score by innings:
JDHS 4 4 2 5 6 -21
SCHS 0 6 0 0 0 – 6
SCHS 1 0 0 – 1
JDHS 3 10 3 -16
SCHS 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 -0
JDHS 1 1 4 1 0 1 x -8
