The weekend wasn't so good for the Soddy-Daisy High School baseball team, which entered the Ooltewah Invitational with a seven-game win streak to open the season.
The Trojans plummeted back to earth and entered their District 5-AAA game Monday at Ooltewah on a 0-4 losing skid.
Scoring two runs in each of the first three innings and then leaning heavily on closer Colin Kearney, Soddy-Daisy held on for a 6-5 victory over the Owls to extend their district record to 5-0.
Ooltewah's Caleb Collins pitches against Soddy-Daisy Monday at Ooltewah High School.It was Kearney who slammed the door. The junior entered the game with two outs in the bottom of the sixth and promptly struck out the sixth batter of the inning to snuff out an Ooltewah rally. The Owls had scratched across one run that inning off starter and winning pitcher Hunter Maynor and had runners on third and first.
Then in the seventh, after Jackson Malcolm pushed a single through the right side, Kearney struck out the next batter and induced a fly to center -- on which Tre Carter came in to make a sliding catch. Catcher Dillon Clift then ended the game by gunning down Malcolm when he tried to swipe second.
"Colin did a great job and I'm very, very pleased with where he is," Trojans coach Jared Hensley said. "Ever since last year on this field -- he got an opportunity in the district championship game and did well with it -- he has taken every opportunity and run with it. He's been really good for us so far."
"Kearney's a kid that's going to be around the zone and throw a lot of strikes. He's fearless," Ooltewah coach Brian Hitchcox said.
It looked for the first half of the game that Soddy-Daisy had listened well to Hensley's pregame chat about tigers and the sensors in their canines that allowed them to know if their prey was ripe for the kill. And then it was like the Trojans stuck that one in their back pockets.
"We get a lead, try to finish people off," he told them.
"Ooltewah is way too well-coached to let them hang around, and it almost bit us," he said at the game's conclusion. "We made some mistakes in the field, and I guess the lack of practice (due to weather) is beginning to seep its way through. We have to shore a few things up defensively."
Ooltewah's press-the-issue offense kept the pressure on the Trojans, especially after Owls reliever Malcolm entered and kept the Trojans off the scoreboard the final four innings.
"Hats off to him," Hensley said. "He came in and gave us a completely different look -- kept us off-balance and at bay for the last four innings."
What would be the eventual winning run came off a wicked shot up the middle that ricocheted off Owls starting pitcher Caleb Collins and bounded into right field with no outs in the third. The single allowed Grant Cordell, who'd doubled off the center-field fence, to score the Trojans' sixth run.
Andy Wright, whose double to left preceded Cordell's shot, was 3-for-3 for the Trojans, while Chandler Sulcer was 2-for-3 with a second-inning two-run single.
Malcolm, Tyler Roberson and Hunter Conrad had two hits each for the Owls.
The teams conclude their two-game series tonight at Soddy-Daisy.
Contact Ward Gossett at wgossett@timesfreepress.com or 423-886-4765. Follow him at Twitter.com/wardgossett.