JEFFERSON got a huge night out of its pitchers before the start of postseason play, while the Dragon offense produced a rarely-seen highlight.
Matt Bowen and Micah Carpenter combined to throw a one-hitter, and Andrew Bartek, Tyler Cole and Ryan Johnson crushed home runs in three consecutive at-bats as the Dragon baseball team (11-8, 7-5) cruised to an 8-2 Senior Night win over East Jackson Friday.
“I don’t think I’ve ever had a team go back-to-back-to-back, so that was pretty fun to watch,” said Jefferson coach Tommy Knight, whose team starts a best-of-three region playoff series Thursday against Banks County (Wednesday’s games were rained out).
The long balls were part of an eight-run third inning during which the Dragons brought 13 batters to the plate and scored all their runs on the night.
The pitching performance wasn’t shabby either. The Dragons retired the side in order in every inning except the top of the fourth.
Bowen threw five innings, allowing one hit and two runs, one of which was earned. He also struck out three batters and walked none. Carpenter worked two perfect innings of relief, striking out three.
Knight explained the decision to split up the pitching duties.
“He (Bowen) hasn’t gone more than four innings this year, and he said he was getting a little tired and I wanted to get him out while the getting was good and let him have a good, successful Senior Night,” Knight said. “And Micah needed some work. He hadn’t thrown in a while.”
The pivotal third inning for Jefferson started with the Dragons getting singles from Andy Nicolas and Hanon Price and scoring off a sacrifice bunt from Trent Sorrells. Two batters later, Max Ford ripped a two-run double to up the lead to 3-0. Austin Thompson then reached on an error, putting two runners on base for Bartek, the cleanup hitter.
And clean-up he did.
Bartek responded with a three-run blast over the leftfield wall to push the lead to 6-0. Cole and Johnson followed with solo shots, and Jefferson led 8-0.
East Jackson (2-15, 1-11) got two of those runs back in the top of the fourth with a two-out, two-run single from Martin. But Bowen and Carpenter were in command the rest of the way.
Jefferson, which has scored 21 runs in its last two games, has now given itself a little bit of momentum heading into its region playoff series with Banks County, the no. 1 seed out of the North subregion. If the Dragons win that series, they’ll clinch a spot in the Class AA state tournament after missing out on it last year.
“We’re swinging the bat finally,” Knight said. “We haven’t swung it this well all year, obviously, and scored this many runs all year. It’s good going into a playoff series having scored that many runs and having some confidence at the plate.”
Jefferson and Banks County will play a doubleheader Thursday in Homer, with the first game starting at 5 p.m. The second game is slated for approximately 7:30 p.m. The teams will play again Friday if needed.
