Cook Hornets sting Worth County Rams, take region title

ADEL — The third-ranked Worth County Rams will be looking to regroup and regain focus heading into the state playoffs next week after the Cook County Hornets swept a doubleheader Thursday afternoon in Adel.

The doubleheader sweep by the Hornets gave Cook County the Region 1-AAA championship and the top seed coming out of the region. Worth County finishes in second.

The Rams had won the first game of the series on Tuesday in Sylvester, but Friday’s scheduled games were moved a day earlier because of expected bad weather.

Worth County Coach Will Smith had hoped the games would be played on Saturday, giving the players another day of rest, but Cook County, being the home team, chose to move the game to Thursday. The Hornets took game one 3-1 and won game two 5-3.

“We should have not had to play today,” said Smith. “The way the bylaws are written, the games should have been played Saturday&lt. “But the real problem was that we left too many men on base and didn’t get them across the plate.”

Things didn’t start well for Worth County. Right-hander Jack Fletcher had trouble finding the strike zone to start the game. In the first inning, the Hornets scored three runs with just one hit because of walks and a hit batsman. With only a third of an inning gone, Worth County pulled Bailey Coker in to pitch. He walked the first batter as well, but then settled down and induced a double-play to in the inning.

The Hornets did not score again in game one, but the Rams were unable to score against Cook County’s hard-throwing right-hander Brock Revels. Worth County center fielder Cason King belted a solo home run in the third inning and that was the only run the Rams could produce against Revels.

Revels pitched a complete game giving up only four hits and one walk. He struck out four times.

In Game 2, the Hornets jumped on the board first, scoring on an error in the second inning. Cook County built their lead to 5-0 in the third inning with a double by Grant Bagley and singles by Revels and Kodi Way.

The Rams tried to slowly come back and scored single runs in the fifth, sixth and seventh innings. King knocked in the run in the fifth, Coker batted in the run in the sixth, and Fletcher got the RBI in the seventh.

Salem Brannon, the left-hander who pitched six innings Tuesday in Sylvester, pitched six more innings on Thursday to earn the win on the mound. He gave up seven hits and walked one and struck out one. Revels pitched the seventh for the Hornets out of the bullpen.

Worth County’s Griffin Melton took the loss on the mound for the Rams giving up five runs on five hits in two and one third innings.

State playoff pairings have not been released yet, but the Rams will host the first round in Sylvester.

By Joe Whitfield