WGOL
Listen Live
Local Weather
Russellville, AL
59°

Russellville rolls to second-round sweep

ARAB - Russellville flexed its offensive muscle in Friday’s doubleheader sweep of Arab, but it was a handful of clutch plays in the field in the second game that helped the Golden Tigers punch their ticket to the Class 5A quarterfinals for a third consecutive season.

Russellville (32-9) hammered out 16 hits—including four by Judd Ward and three by Colin Garrison—in a 13-2 rout of the Knights in the series opener and collected 13 more hits in the nightcap, a 13-3 win. Defense, however, stole the show in game two at Arab City Park, starting in the top of the first.

The Knights (19-18) put runners at first and second with one out against Golden Tiger starter Chad Wray, and cleanup hitter Nic Knighten hit a sharp grounder up the middle that got by diving second baseman Noah Gist for a single. When Arab coach Chad Hudson waved fleet-footed leadoff man Drew Hudson around third with what he hoped would be the game’s first run, Russellville head coach Chris Heaps had one immediate thought in the dugout.

“When we saw that runner coming home,” Heaps later recalled, “me and Coach [Corey] Flanagan both said, ‘He’s out.’ That’s just a case of [them] not knowing Judd Ward.”

Ward, the Golden Tigers’ senior centerfielder, charged the baseball and came up throwing, unleashing a laser beam to home plate. Senior catcher Russ Carpenter caught the throw on the fly and tagged a sliding Hudson for the second out of the inning.

“Judd’s got an unbelievable arm,” Heaps said. “What really impressed me was earlier this year down at Gulf Shores when he had three outfield assists in one game against McGill-Toolen [in a 1-0, eleven-inning loss]. He’s got a strong arm, but it’s so accurate, too.

“There was another play later in the game where [Arab] held up a guy at third who probably would have scored, but they didn’t want to take another chance with Judd out there.”

Ward, who had gone 4-for-5 with a home run and five RBIs in Friday’s game one rout, showed off another impressive tool in the bottom of the first in game two, flying around the bases and scoring all the way from first on Cody Greenhill’s one-out double to right. Houston Kitterman added a two-run double later in the inning, staking the Golden Tigers to an early 3-0 lead.

Russellville was still in front 4-1 in the top of the fourth when Wray hit Ryan Law with a pitch and then gave up a two-out double off the right-field fence by Hudson. Senior Colin Garrison got to the ball quickly for Russellville and fired a perfect strike to first baseman Greenhill, who in turn zipped a relay throw to the plate. Carpenter needed every inch of his 6’4 frame, leaping high to snare the throw and then coming back down to put the tag on Law and complete a 9-3-2 putout that ended the inning.

At that point, the Knights (still trailing 4-1) had stranded five runners and had two more cut down at the plate.

Russellville added a run in the bottom of the fourth when Noah Gist beat out an infield hit, moved up on a sac bunt by Garrison and then scored on Greenhill’s second RBI double of the game, a deep drive off the centerfield fence. Arab mounted its most serious threat in the top of the fifth, however, taking advantage of three walks by Wray and another by reliever Rudy Fernandez to score twice and cut the lead to 5-3.

The Knights still had the bases loaded with just one out when Fernandez fielded a soft comebacker off the bat of Will Hudson and threw to Carpenter for a force play at home. The next batter, Law, hit a grounder toward the hole at short that had trouble written all over it. Junior shortstop Landon Ezzell ranged far to his right and ignored a passing runner who flashed across his vision just as the ball arrived, sliding to a knee and knocking it down. He then picked up the ball and fired a strike to Gist covering second for the final out of the inning and perhaps the biggest defensive play of the night.

“I’ve had trouble this year with a few balls hit that way where the runner was kind of in the way,” said Ezzell, who primarily played second base last year for Russellville and has also spent a fair amount of time behind the plate in his career before taking over shortstop duties this season. “When the runner goes by like that, of course it interferes with you a little bit, but you have to make the play. I kind of went into catcher mode on that one—just block it up. I knew if I made a good throw to second, Noah would be there for me.”

Ezzell’s web gem kept it a 5-3 game and ended what would prove to be Arab’s final threat of the series.

“Ezzell made big defensive plays for us all night,” Heaps said. “He made several plays coming in on balls that were hit pretty slow, those rush plays where he has to throw on the run. A couple of throws pulled Skylar [Holland, who played first in game one with Greenhill on the mound] off the bag, but he did a good job of dropping the tag down on the runner. That’s something we practice all the time.”

Clinging to a two-run lead and hoping to avoid a game three, Russellville used a little small ball to add some insurance in the bottom of the fifth. Ezzell singled, Kitterman was hit by a pitch and Tom Barkley Scott bunted for a hit to load the bases. Carpenter drove in a run with a grounder to second, pushing the lead to 6-3 and leaving runners at the corners with one down.

“When Houston got to third,” Heaps said, “I sort of told him, ‘Hey, just one out here, stay with me, okay. Stay with me.’ I wanted him to be ready in case we decided to squeeze. We have a verbal [signal] that I give the guys, and if I look at them and give them the verbal they know the squeeze is on.”

Heaps opted to go with the squeeze, and Gist (with Kitterman racing down the third-base line toward home plate) pushed a perfect bunt to the right side of the infield, restoring the lead to four runs at 7-3.

“Three runs didn’t feel nearly as good as four,” Heaps said. “Getting that second run home was huge for us, and I thought it was a real blow for them. Noah did a great job of getting the bunt down. Their pitcher had been having a little trouble finding the zone there, so I was just hoping he would get it close enough for Noah to be able to put one down.”

Fernandez worked a one-two-three top of the sixth, and then the Golden Tigers ended the game with six runs in the bottom half. Ward roped a stand-up triple down the right-field line to start the inning and then scored on Greenhill’s sacrifice fly. Kitterman and Scott each had RBI singles later in the inning, and Garrison delivered a walk-off two-run single to make it 13-3 and seal the deal.

Wray (6-3) picked up his first career playoff win, allowing three earned runs on six hits in 4.1 innings. He struck out four and walked five before giving way to Fernandez, who recorded the final five outs to earn his first save of the season.

Greenhill went 2-for-3 in game two and drove in three runs, giving him a team-best 58 RBIs on the year in 41 games. Ezzell was 2-for-2 in the nightcap with a double and three runs scored, and Kitterman went 2-for-3 with three RBIs and two runs scored. Gist went 2-for-3 and scored twice, and Scott also had two hits.

Ward led the offensive onslaught in game one, continuing a postseason rampage that began last week when he hit for the cycle and drove in four runs in game three of a first-round series against Mortimer Jordan. He nearly duplicated the feat in Friday’s opener, blasting a two-run homer to right on the second pitch of the game and later adding a pair of RBI doubles and a run-scoring single.

Ward’s triple in the sixth inning of game two made him 5-for-8 on the day with 12 total bases. He’s now 11-for-19 in five playoff games with eight extra-base hits, and he’s raised his season average to .413 heading into next weekend’s quarterfinal series with Etowah (29-6). He's also sitting on 198 hits in his Russellville career.

Garrison singled on the first pitch of Friday’s first game and finished the opener 3-for-4 with three runs scored. Greenhill went 2-for-2 in game one with two RBIs and also delivered on the mound, throwing his sixth complete game of the season and the 24th of his varsity career. Greenhill (9-2) held Arab to two runs (both unearned) on two hits in six innings, striking out eight and walking two.

Kitterman and Scott each went 2-for-4 in game one, and Fernandez was 1-for-3 with a double and three runs scored. Carpenter also doubled, one of six extra-base hits by Russellville in the series opener.

Since going 2-for-23 at the plate in a 3-1 loss to Mortimer Jordan in game two of a first-round series, the Golden Tigers have scored 37 runs on 43 hits over their last three games.

“We had a lot of good at bats today,” said Ezzell, who went 1-for-3 with an RBI double in Friday’s first game. “We swung at good pitches. Since we lost that second game last week, we’ve really been trying to punish teams every chance we get. I think losing that game might have been the best thing that could have happened for us.

“I think it woke us up.”

comments powered by Disqus
Copyright © 2024 Franklin Free Press All Rights Reserved.
Designed and Hosted by RiverBender.com
113 Washington Ave. NW | Russellville, AL 35653 | 256-332-0255