Clarksville, TN – Northwest High School’s baseball team took advantage of five West Creek High School errors, May 5th in the losers’ bracket of the District 10-AAA tournament at Clarksville High School’s baseball field, to score eight unearned runs in defeating the Coyotes, 8-6.
The Vikings (7-25) will advance to the 4:30pm May 6th losers’ bracket finals to face Henry County High School, who lost to Clarksville High School on May 5th, 14-4, while West Creek (14-19) sees its season come to an end.
Harlow finished with three hits and Zach two hits to lead the Vikings.
That brought up Johnny Price, who hit a chopper to West Creek third baseman Brenden Williams, who in looking to throw home to cut down the lead runner dropped the ball.
Williams then compounded the problem by trying to throw Price out at first base, but threw wildly, allowing all three runners that were on base then the play started come around to score.
After a strikeout and a walk to Channing Ratliff, the Vikings Shawn King hit a ground ball to Williams — who again threw wide of first base – allowing Price and Ratliff to score, making it 5-0.
West Creek would get one of the runs back in the bottom of the inning, on a double by Peyton Burks, driving in Allen Denhart.
But an error by West Creek shortstop Jose Poindexter helped set up the Vikings to get the run right back in the top of the second inning, with Zach Dixon driving in Jahnal Browne – who had reached on the error.
Again, the Coyotes would answer back with a run in the bottom of the inning on a double, with Williams driving in Chris Huff – who had also doubled.
The score would remain 6-2 until the bottom of the fifth inning, when it looked like the Coyotes would get back into the contest by scoring two runs in the inning – including a RBI single from Poindexter – to make it 6-4 Vikings.
But just as it looked like the Coyotes had regained some momentum, two more West Creek errors in the top of the sixth inning set up a two-run single by Ratliff to push the Vikings lead back out to 8-4.
In their final at bat, the Coyotes loaded the bases – with no outs – on a single’s by Rayniel Nunez and Williams, along with a walk to Huff.
The Vikings would bring in Ratliff to relieve starter Christian Dorthalina, who after binging up a run on a fielder’s choice to make it 8-6, struck out two of the next three batters to seal the victory for the Vikings.
