CHURCH HILL — Cherokee erupted for seven runs in the seventh inning to break open a close game and beat Volunteer 11-5 in a key District 2-3A baseball contest on Thursday, April 25, at Joey Seaver Field.
With the victory, the Chiefs captured the swing game in the best-of-three series between the two county rivals and — more importantly — wrapped up a second-place finish in the Twin Lakes Conference regular-season standings and the No. 2 seed in this week’s District 2-3A baseball tournament. It marked the baseball team’s highest finish in league play in school history.
“It’s a big win for the program. It’s a big one for the boys, most importantly,” said first-year coach Gus Fraley. “We’ve taken blow after blow for the past couple of weeks. They’ve felt as down as down can get about everything going on. But we knew this was going to happen. We knew the time was coming — and walking through the outfield and talking to the boys, there was not a doubt in my mind that we were going to find a way to be on top tonight. It was just a matter of how it was going to happen.”
The county rivals came into the game with second place in the conference on the line. Soon after their game ended, both coaching staffs learned that Grainger had upset Greeneville in the first game of a doubleheader — securing the Chiefs’ the No. 2 spot in the league standings and knocking the Falcons all the way back to the fourth seed and into Wednesday’s play-in game.
“It’s frustrating, but that’s a good baseball team over here. When you give good baseball teams extra chances and extra outs, they take advantage of it,” said Volunteer coach Josh Peterson. “I’ve preached all year that if you play error-free baseball and cut down on the walks, you give yourself a chance to win balls games. We did that for four or five innings, but we had that one inning where the brakes came off and we couldn’t run it in — and that happens. That’s baseball.”
Peterson said he couldn’t fault the effort.
“They played hard. They didn’t give up, even down 11-5,” Peterson said. “But this one’s done. It’s 0-0 tomorrow.”
The District 2-3A baseball tournament gets underway Wednesday, May 1, at Tusculum University’s Pioneer Park.
Defending state champion Greeneville, which captured the conference championship with a 10-2 league mark, is the top seed and will receive a bye into the district tournament winners’ bracket semifinals.
Claiborne and Volunteer will kickthings off in the play-in game on Wednesday at 3 p.m. at Tusculum’s Pioneer Park. Cherokee will face Grainger at 5 p.m. in the first winners’ bracket semifinal. Greeneville will take on the play-in game winner in the nightcap at 7:30 p.m.The play-in game loser will be eliminated, and the remainder of the tournament is double elimination.
The top two teams move on to the regional tournament.
HOW THEY SCORED
Cherokee came loaded and ready to roll as Clay Wagoner’s leadoff double set the tone for a four-run first inning. The Chiefs took advantage of three walks and an error to take the early 4-0 lead.
Volunteer answered with a leadoff single by Brycen Feagins, who came around to score on a sacrifice fly by Austin Williams to cut the lead to 4-1.
Volunteer kept chipping away.
A leadoff single by Greyson Dennis led to a run by courtesy runner Blakely Broussard on a groundout by Aden Parsons to cut the Chiefs’ lead to 4-2 after two. Then, in the bottom of the third, Dennis hit a hard grounder that was misplayed by the Chiefs to score Connor Haynes and close the gap to 4-3.
Parsons appeared to give the Falcons’ the momentum with a spectacular defensive play in the top of the sixth. The left fielder made a diving catch and came up throwing to double off the Cherokee runner to end the inning. The Falcons fed off of it and tied the game at 4-4 in the bottom of the sixth when Gavin Hickernell led off with a triple and scored on an RBI-single by Parsons.
All tied up heading into the final inning, the Chiefs didn’t flinch.
Manning Brooks reached on an error, Gage Adkins drew a walk and Gavin Housewright executed the sacrifice bunt to advance both runners. Mason Emery singled to left field to score Brooks for the 5-4 lead. Jacob Brooks then reached on an outfield error to score pinch runner Jayden Weston. Hits by Wagoner and Parker Travis put the Chiefs up 9-4 and brought on a pitching change for the Falcons.
Back-to-back walks and another Volunteer error made it 10-4 as the Chiefs batted through the order. Housewright, who also started on the mound, singled on a line drive to center field to plate courtesy runner Porter Owen and make it 11-4 before the Falcons could escape the inning. Volunteer would take advantage of two walks to plate one more run on an RBI by Dennis scoring Haynes.
Housewright went the distance to earn the win for Cherokee. He held the Falcons to five runs (two earned) on seven hits with four walks and eight strikeouts. Williams took the loss for Volunteer, giving up 10 runs (two earned) on nine hits with seven walks and two strikeouts.
“We’re definitely seeing some learning going on, that just because something doesn’t go our way doesn’t mean that give up needs to happen. They’re finding more ways to be scrappy. I didn’t think this team could get any more scrappy, but they’re continuing to grow,” Fraley said. “Unfortunately, it’s given me a lot of gray hairs, how scrappy they are, because they find themselves into some way too close of games when they shouldn’t be. But if that’s the ball game they want to play, I’m going to be here for it until the end.”
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