Sports

Darton baseball basks in glow of win

• Two memorable wins have Darton’s baseball team looking forward to this weekend’s main draw of the region tourney.

Scott Chancey

ALBANY — All of Sunday’s signs pointed toward the end of Darton College’s baseball season.

Coach Glenn Eames’ fourth-seeded team needed two wins to move past fifth-seeded Abraham Baldwin and into this weekend’s NJCAA Region XVII main draw at South Georgia College. If not, an impressive regular season that included a 17-3 record in March would have meant nothing.

The Cavaliers had lost Friday’s first game in the best-of-3 series, and just when they were warmed up for Game 2 on Saturday, it rained.

Those made some questions linger even more:

• Could Darton break its trend of not producing with runners in scoring position? It hurt the Cavaliers during much of April, and that was an issue in the first-game loss against the Stallions.
• Would the Cavaliers have enough pitching? While winning the first game Sunday, 8-6, Darton used five pitchers.

Darton, leading, 10-7, seemingly had the game sealed before the Stallions rallied with four  runs with two outs in the top of the ninth and threatened to advance. Enter Roscoe Walls in the bottom of the ninth, the pinch-hitter simply needed to provide some kind of spark.

Facing a 1-2 count, he not only got a hit. He possibly got the hit of his life.

His solo home run tied the score, setting the stage for Trent Dooly’s RBI double and a 12-11 win to extend the season into this weekend.

“This was huge,” Eames said. “The play-in series is something I don’t agree with. I voted against it. But this team was so scrappy; we were going to keep battling.

“Roscoe was 1-for-1 with the biggest home run of the year. It was the wildest two games, if not three, that I’ve ever been a part of. Both teams just simply battled, plain and simple.”

Walls’ homer was the kind of clutch hit the Cavaliers needed. For a game based on momentum, someone had to get things going. It was a crazy series (Darton broke away froma fifth-inning tie in the first game to beat the Stallions). A bunt by Matt Fountain scored Adam Duncan for a 5-4 lead, and then Ben Inman converted a suicide squeeze, scoring Jake Summers.

Levi Futo not only went 2-for-5 with two runs scored and an RBI in the first game, he ventured onto the mound in the seventh inning and earned the victory.

Montoya Young went 3-for-5 with two runs scored and Summers was 2-for-2 with two runs scored.

Then in the second game, Futo went 4-for-6 with three runs scored, Dooly once again had a strong game, going 4-for-5 with four RBI and Duncan also had four runs batted in while going 2-for-2 at the plate. The second game’s winning pitcher was Luis Cintron, who ironically blew the save opportunity in the top of the ninth.

On Monday, the final piece to the region tournament was added when Gordon knocked out Andrew. The other two teams advancing to the main draw are Young Harris and South Georgia.

Darton was eliminated in the past two play-in series, and now that the Cavaliers are in the main, double-elimination draw, anything can happen. The Cavaliers have defeated every team in the region at least once, including top-seeded Young Harris, 2-0, in the first game of a doubleheader April 12.

“We’re going after bigger goals,” Eames said. “We want to go over there and win this thing.”

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