Sweetwater baseball took another significant stride in its trek through District 3-2A Tuesday.
The Wildcats 5-0 shutout completed a sweep of Meigs County — Sweetwater’s fourth league sweep of the season.
“I think it was a really good team win on the last two games. A lot of guys did some small things over the course of the games to help us win,” Sweetwater coach Travis Watson said. “We are starting to get the little things down and, hopefully, we can continue to get better.”
Caleb Powell continued to stand strong on the mound, despite navigating multiple spots. The senior struck out 10 batters — moving to 26 on the season — while his ERA has dipped below 1.00 at .824 through 34 innings.
“Caleb never panicked and he trusts the defense. Whatever Cade (Houser) puts down, he goes with it,” Watson said. “He was able to throw a ton of strikes which gave us a chance. We feel we have a pretty good defensive team at times — that is what we want.
“We want to attack the zone, let them start their at-bats early, and hopefully we can make plays early on the mound.”
Powell and Sweetwater (18-4; 8-0) had to navigate a series of jams in a game that Meigs County (7-9; 3-5) was not far out of.
The Tigers — who played as the home team despite weather forcing the game to Sweetwater — were primed to strike in five innings.
Meigs finished the contest with 11 runners left on base. With two runners on and one out in the bottom of the first, Meigs had a runner caught stealing before a popout ended the frame.
The Tigers loaded the bases with one out in the fourth inning, Brody Watson snagged a popout before Powell’s strikeout survived the frame.
One inning later, Sweetwater’s defense survived two leadoff walks an inning later when Powell struck out two batters and another Tiger was caught stealing.
Powell’s 10th strikeout came with bases loaded in the bottom of the seventh. Five of Powell’s strikeouts came with runners onboard.
“They had their No. 1 going tonight and he was really good early on. He kept us off balance and we were able to scratch five runs,” Watson added. “They were one or two hits away from being right there in it at the end.”
Sweetwater’s offense capitalized when given the chance. Two walks in the first inning set up Nolan Dacus to deliver a two-RBI single.
Kai Correll set up the next scoring barrage with a one-out double in the fifth inning and stealing third. Blaine Watson pushed the senior across the plate with a single.
Watson stole his way to third base before Houser’s single brought him home. A bases-loaded walk scored Dacus.
“We stole a few bases there which helped us. If you can get to third base with less than two outs it takes pressure off the hitter,” Travis Watson said. “That is what we talked about is ‘Hey, let us be more dynamic in the different things we can do. Let us not be a power-hitting team or a bunting team. Let’s try to do it all really well.’
“I think we have the capabilities of doing that. We just have to have the mindset of laying a bunt down when we need to. The big hits will come if we continue to get guys on base.”
Bryson Burgess, Correll, Dacus, Houser, Powell, Blaine Watson and Brody Watson all notched hits in the win.
Dacus led Sweetwater with two RBIs followed by one each from Houser, Powell and Brody Watson.
Not many games across East Tennessee took place on April 9.
“We felt like at 2 p.m. the rain was out even though the radar said it was not. We really rolled the dice on it,” Watson said. “Coach (Bryce) Mitchell kept saying we could get it in. The outfield was a little wet, but it was playable. We took about 17 people’s opinions and finally told Meigs to come on.
“It was definitely not the worst conditions we have played in, even this year.”
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