EASTON — Senior right-hander Jace Conner came back to finish what he started, retiring all three batters he faced in the last of the eighth inning to salvage a 6-5 victory at Easton on April 8.
Conner started on the hill for the Trojans, completed three full innings while throwing just 30 pitches and then swapped positions with shortstop Tanner Beck with the score knotted at 1-1.
Conner returned to the mound in the eighth in relief of Beck, with two runners on and no one out.
He got the first batter he faced on a groundout, though the lead runner — representing the tying run — advanced to third with just one away.
Conner then punched out the next two batters on strikeouts to secure the Trojans’ first win of the season.
Collectively, Conner and classmate Beck totaled eight strikeouts and two walks while also hitting two batters.
The Trojans, who never trailed, led 5-3 after batting in the top of the sixth.
Easton (6-3) rallied to send the game into extra innings after pushing single runs across in the home half of the sixth and seventh to deadlock at 5-all.
The Trojans regained the lead for good in the top of the eighth when Gavin Miller, pinch running for Braden Wilson, scored on a bunt.
Wilson led off with a dribbler down the first base line that Easton was not able to field. Miller, a first-year high school baseball player whose speed and spunk are his greatest assets, replaced Wilson on the base path and promptly stole second and then third, before scoring what held up to be the winning run on a bang-bang play.
Beck went back out to the mound to start the last of the eighth, but after the first two Easton batters reached, Kent County head coach Jason Conner summoned his son back to the hill.
Kent County (2-5) picked up its second win Thursday, April 10 at Spry Field in a twin bill split with Cambridge-South Dorchester.
Beck went the distance in the first game, earning the 7-4 victory while finishing just under the 105-pitch maximum. He line included eight strikeouts and no walks.
Noah Iacona, hitting second in the order, reached safely in three of his four plate appearances and scored three runs. His double in the first inning produced the Trojans’ first run.
Kent County led 5-3 after pushing three runs across in the second inning and another run in the last of the third, and tacked on a pair of insurance runs in the sixth when Iacona and Scottie Ford scored with two away.
Cambridge rallied to win the nightcap, 14-13, after trailing by as many as eight runs.
The Vikings scored the winning run with one out in the bottom of the sixth inning.
Coaches for both teams had agreed to end the game after six innings because of approaching darkness and winter-like cold and windy weather.
As the visiting team in the second game, KCHS raced out to an immediate 5-0 lead while chasing the starting pitcher after just six batters.
Jace Conner, Iacona, Ford, Beck and freshman Hunter Hawn reached in succession to open the game, and they all scored. Hawn drew a bases-loaded walk to plate a run, freshman Drew Haas’ flyout scored another run and Wilson’s two-run double to center field extended the spread to 5-0.
Conner led off the second with a blast that cleared the left field fence. With two away, Haas reached on an error to plate Ford (single into left field) and Hawn (error) for an 8-1 advantage.
After Cambridge closed to within three runs, 8-5, after two innings, KCHS scored five unanswered runs to build what appeared to be a commanding lead, 13-5.
“We let off the gas pedal … took it for granted,” coach Jason Conner said in a telephone interview the following day.
He also said “dumb mistakes” played into the loss.
Hawn pitched the first two innings, and threw 31 pitches, before handing off to Wilson, who went the rest of the way.
WHAT’S NEXT: The Trojans have three games in three days before getting time off for spring break. KCHS is at Queen Anne’s on Monday, April 14; home Tuesday against North Caroline; and on the road again Wednesday at Crisfield. All games start at 4 p.m.
