West baseball drops another close one

By: | SCNOW
Published: March 25, 2009

FLORENCE — The West Florence Knights have been close to victory in recent games in Region 6-4A.

But as was the case Tuesday against Conway, not quite close enough.

Conway’s Clay Altman made a spectacular play at third base to prevent the winning run from scoring for West in the seventh inning, and hit a two-out, RBI single in the top of the 11th as the Tigers earned a 6-5 win.

The loss drops West to 4-5 overall and 1-3 in the region. All of West’s region games this season have been decided by one run.

“It was a good high school game,” West coach Bob Kleinknecht said. “It boiled down to just putting the ball in play when you needed to.”

West had the winning run in scoring position in five out of the last six innings, but could not bring it home.

Chandler Smetana appeared to have the game-winning hit in the seventh. With runners on second and third and two out, Smetana smacked a hard liner down the third base side.

But Altman batted it down, quickly picked it up and threw to first to get Smetana and send the game into extras.

West’s hopes were dashed again in the eighth as Landis Lane was thrown out at the plate attempting to score on a wild pitch.

“They made a great play late in the game,” Kleinknecht said. “Either team could have won, it was just who came up with the big play or the big hit.”

The game began with the Knights taking a 4-1 lead in the first inning against South Carolina signee Colby Holmes.

Two throwing errors and two walks by Holmes opened the door for a big inning as West scored four unearned runs against the Conway ace.

But trailing 4-2, the Tigers rallied to tie the game in the fifth behind Altman’s two-run single.

West grabbed the lead in the bottom half of the inning on Dustin McRae’s RBI single. But Conway tied the game again in the sixth on a fielder’s choice.

Neither starter factored into the decision. Holmes allowed four runs, none earned, on four hits in four innings while striking out six.

Knights starter Hunter Gregg allowed five runs, four earned, on six hits with four strikeouts in 5 2/3 innings.

Altman picked up the win, allowing no runs on three hits in four innings of relief. Spencer Matthews was the hard-luck loser for West, allowing one run on four hits in 5 1/3 innings of solid relief.

“We jumped on their guy early and our pitchers threw strikes,” Kleinknecht said. “We battled the entire game and never gave in.”

Paul Pizzuti led the Knights at the plate going 2-for-5 with two doubles and an RBI. Freshman Zack Shields was 3-for-5 with a double and was hit by a pitch.

McRae had two hits and an RBI as well.

West plays at Ridge View tonight at 7:30 p.m.