Weeks of delays and rainouts gave way to a beautiful evening of baseball Monday at Mill Creek park. The Statesboro Blue Devils jumped out to a 4-0 lead and never looked back as they knocked off the visiting Rebels from Effingham County 8-4.
I feel like we really took advantage of bringing in the runners that were in scoring position tonight,” said Statesboro coach Jeff Kaiser. “We took advantage of a couple of their miscues, and we just had a lot more timely hitting than we have had recently.”
The Blue Devils jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first, on a sacrifice fly by Mikal Mascarello, and then scored three in the fourth to take a 4-0 lead.
Ames Rackleff had an RBI double, and J.D. Kaiser added an RBI single to help the Blue Devil extend their lead to 4-0 with three runs in the fourth.
“The top of the order did a good job tonight,” Kaiser said. “I think we are still striking out too much as a team, but I think seeing more pitching on a regular basis may help that improve.”
The Rebels came back to cut the Blue Devil lead in half with two runs in the top of the fifth, but the Blue Devils answered right back with three runs in the bottom of the fifth, to extend their lead to 7-2. The Rebels added two more runs in the sixth, but again the Blue Devils answered with a run in their half of the inning.
Mascarello held things up on the mound with four shutout innings, and also added three RBI’s at the plate. Drake Horton came in to pitch in the top of the sixth, and recorded the final four outs of the game.
The one area that continues to hurt the Blue Devils is in the field. Statesboro had three errors, but the pitchers were able to get out of plenty of james, as they stranded eight Effingham runners.
“We have only taken the field for one practice over the last three weeks, and that was on a Sunday,” Kaiser said. “We have now played four game in four days, and I feel like we have gotten better every game.”
The Blue Devils improve to 7-5 on the season, and up next they will travel to Effingham County Wednesday for a 6:00 start.
SEB wins rivalry tilt
In Brooklet the Southeast Bulloch Yellow Jackets won a low scoring affair with Screven County 4-1. The Jackets were led by Terry Turner at the plate and on the mound.
Turner pitched six innings, and gave up only two hits and one run. At the plate Turner had two hits and an RBI. WIll Hitchens and Ethan Shannon had the other two RBIs for the Jackets, while Riley Emrich notched the save.
The Yellow Jackets improve to 2-3 on the season. Up next Southeast Bulloch will play a make-up game Tuesday at 5:30 at home, and then the Jackets have another region game Thursday at home against Windsor Forest at 4:30.
