By Thomas Grant Jr.
River Bluff entered the season as the defending Class 5A baseball champion.
On Sunday, Lexington continued its winning ways against its Region 4-5A rival in the Opterra Solutions Invitational. The Wildcats rallied for a 5-4 walk-off victory to claim their third consecutive title and fourth overall.
All four final wins have come over the Gators, mostly in dramatic fashion. The latest came on a 2-run home run by Jackson Cionek which ended the game which was called in the bottom of the sixth inning.
It was only the third hit of the game by the Wildcats. The other runs came off a 3-run homer by Brayden Jeffcoat.
“In all honestly, I saw Christian (Spivey) on base,” Cionek said. “I was thinking to myself ‘I’m going to hit a walk-off home run right here and put us in the championship level in winning the Opterra Solutions Invitational.’”
“We see great opponents, we found a way to compete and win,” Lexington head coach Brian Hucks said. “To go 4-0 in this tournament was special.”
The Gators had nine hits in going 2-2 in the Invitational. University of South Carolina signee Beau Hollins had a game-tying 2-run homer and Garrett Sanders and Cameron Woodruff each had RBI singles.
Head coach Mark Bonnette lamented the missed opportunities both to add to their lead and keep Lexington off the board.
“We play a lot of tight games with them,” he said. “They’ve been the home team. We played the championship game here and they got the big hits when they matter. Tonight, the tale for us was the free bases. We gave up too many free bases. They had three hits in the whole night, but they got two big ones when it mattered.”
Both teams will have more challenging games before meeting in region play. Lexington will have a home-at-home series starting Wednesday with state runner-up Blythewood, which went 3-1 in the Invitational. The Wildcats will play host to Charlotte Christian on March 13 in a doubleheader and Lugoff-Elgin two nights later before opening region play against Chapin on March 18.
“We’re going to be battle-tested,” Hucks said. “We’re going to be ready to roll.”
River Bluff will face Gilbert and Mid-Carolina in a home-at-home series the next two weeks before facing White Knoll in the region opener.
“We’ve got two weeks to get ready for region play,” Bonnette said. “In high school baseball, the only games that matter are your region games. So, we’ve got two weeks to get ourselves right. We’ve got a lot of inexperienced guys. A lot of guys that haven’t played a lot. So I’m hoping the more at-bats we get, the more games we play, when we get to region play, we’ll be ready.”
Dutch Fork also posted a 2-2 record at the Invitational. The Silver Foxes won their opening game 6-5 over Stratford in eight innings.
Jarvis Jackson broke a 3-3 tie in the top of the eighth with a two-out RBI single. Boykin Bickley followed with a 2-run double to make it 6-3 and provide enough of a cushion to withstand a 2-run rally by the Knights.
The same day saw Dutch Fork lose to Dorman 11-5. The Silver Foxes rebounded with a 5-1 win over Brookland-Cayce in five innings as Ethan Offing drove in two runs and Matthew Rollison had a solo home run.
Jake Rogers struck out seven batters and allowed one run on two hits for the victory.
Dutch Fork closed out the Invitational with a 10-7 loss to Blythewood. Raleigh Salters had a 2-run homer in defeat.
All Photos by Thomas Grant Jr.
