CLEVELAND, Tenn. — Ty King wasn’t at his best. Bradley Central baseball coach Travis Adams blamed the horrible preseason weather that all but shut down outdoor practice.
King was pretty good, though, limiting visiting Ooltewah essentially to a two-run single from Sam Zettel in a 6-3 District 5-AAA victory Monday.
It was opening day for Tennessee high school baseball, and a number of teams adjusted their start times with hopes of getting their games in, especially with rain predicted for the rest of the week.
Bradley and Ooltewah moved their game up two hours to 5 p.m., which Adams might consider doing more often if he’s going to get the kind of pitching he got Monday.
“(King) didn’t have that many strikeouts and I thought Ooltewah was ready to hit, but he didn’t get hit hard, and we played well behind him except for one in the inning where they scored,” Adams said. “Like everybody else, this was only our third time to be on a field — actually doing something without having to go to the gym.”
King, who was recruited by Belmont and Middle Tennessee State before signing with Tennessee Tech, was more concerned about the win and the fact that he was on a leash than about his two strikeouts.
“Us not being on the field much to practice, it felt a little funky at first,” said the 6-foot-7, 190-pounder. “I was throwing the changeup and getting ground balls, and I was concerned about my (80) pitch count. I wasn’t worried about the strikeouts, just trying to get outs.”
King gave up just one free pass but hit two batters and threw a wild pitch.
“It’s day one. He’ll get better,” Adams said. “He’s a veteran — our Monday starter last year — and he just hasn’t been able to get out and stretch it out.”
“I think their two guys (King and Chandler Hamilton) might’ve been too much for us at this point in the season,” Ooltewah coach Brian Hitchcox said. “Nobody’s had a lot of field time, and it’s a tough matchup.”
Bradley drew first blood, scoring two runs in the first inning on back-to-back singles by King and Austin Calfee and then doubled its total in the second on Tyler Carpenter’s single that scored Brandon Thompson and Tanner Cox.
The Owls scrambled back, cutting the Bears’ advantage to 4-3 in the top of the fifth.
Mitch Duncan reached on an error and Jackson Malcolm worked King for the only walk he surrendered. Hunter Conrad sacrificed them over, Tyler Robertson reached on an error, which scored Duncan, and the right-handed-hitting Zettel, a promising middle infielder, delivered an opposite-field, two-run single.
“I like the fact that while we really had only one inning with a good opportunity to score, we cashed in for three and put the pressure on them with a rally and a big hit and a chance to tie it up,” Hitchcox said.
Bradley, though, bounded back in the bottom of the sixth. Calfee walked and Hamilton, who also picked up a save with two innings of relief, tripled to right.
Contact Ward Gossett at wgossett@timesfreepress.com or 423-886-4765. Follow him at Twitter.com/wardgossett.