SUMRALL – In what Sumrall coach Andy Davis called the most complete game of the season, the Bobcats dominated Columbia 16-1 in a pivotal region matchup.
The Tuesday night win was decided in just five innings to keep the Bobcats in the heat for the Region 7-4A title to keep Sumrall and rival Purvis tied for first place.
“We are tied right now with Purvis, and I fully believe that Purvis is going to win out,” Davis said. “That means we will have to win out. I think it’ll come down to run differential, and it might even come down to a coin toss. Who knows? But we need to take care of what we can take of. To me, this is one of the toughest divisions in the state.”
Sumrall’s hitters took advantage of Columbia’s 10 walks as the Bobcats stole seven bases and posted nine hits, with six being for extra bases. In addition, Sumrall scored multiple runs in every inning of the game.
“Anytime you can win (the freebie war), you can probably win the game,” Davis said. We barreled some balls up. Pushed some gaps and was able to run the bases and kind of, I won’t say, put the game out of reach, but got runs in the beginning.
“We take pride in running bases. We work on it every day in practice. We stressed it hard for the past week or so. We are trying to get better and trying to find something that will put us back on top.”
In the top of the first, the Bobcats struggled after committing a pair of errors that helped put two runners on base with one out. Yet Sumrall’s starting pitcher Drew Davis, the son of head coach Andy Davis, came up with a strikeout and a flyout to end the threat.
“You are looking at a big division game, senior night and home game,” Andy Davis said. “I think the nerves were going a little bit. For us to get out unscathed in that first inning settled us down a little bit.
In the bottom of the frame, back-to-back RBI doubles from Conner Walker and Cade Clinton gave Sumrall a 3-0 lead. The Bobcats maintained the momentum as they scored five runs in the second and third innings.
In the second, Landon Hawkins came up with a 3-run double and then stole home. The only other run in the inning was scored from a throwing error to home plate.
Hawkins, along with Walker and London Holliman, drove in runs with base hits, with two other runs scoring on an error and then a dropped strikeout to push the lead to 13-0.
Columbia’s lone run came in the fourth after Drew Davis gave up a leadoff single and a walk with no outs. The Wildcats took advantage of the opportunity with an RBI single, but a groundball and a flyout ended the inning. Davis, who is an eighth grader, allowed one run off four hits, struck out three batters, and walked two while improving his record to 8-0.
“Long innings killed him,” Andy Davis said. “He’s young. He has to know how to handle the long innings. I thought he did a great job to only give up one run, and Columbia is a good ball club.”
Sumrall capped off the night in the fourth, with pinch hitter Malek McNair hitting a 3-run double.
The Bobcats will now go on the road to face Columbia on Friday with first pitch set for 6:30 p.m.
“We have not had a complete game, whether it’s been good defense and we didn’t hit, or good pitching and then we played bad defense,” Davis said. “We haven’t put all the facets of the game together. Tonight, we ran the bases well. We hit the ball well. We played pretty good defense, and we pitched the ball well. That’s what we have been preaching.”
