Christian Hairr releases a pitch toward home plate early in the contest against Goldsboro on Friday.
Raiders remain undefeated with back-to-back wins
Grant Barefoot plays a choppy ground ball to get an out at first base on Friday.
Nate Smith slides into second base. The play was close, but the umpire ruled Smith safe.
Sawyer Sutton makes contact on one of his hits during Friday evening’s game against Goldsboro.
The Midway Raiders baseball team continued their East Central Conference push last week, taking on Wayne County foe Goldsboro out on the baseball diamond. Remaining undefeated, the Raiders defeated the Cougars in a pair of wins to remain alone atop the league standings, winning 9-0 on Tuesday and 13-3 on Friday night.
During Friday night’s contest, Midway pitcher Christian Hairr and the Raiders defense produced a three up, three down inning to quickly send things to the home half of the inning. Midway’s Jonathan Cooper and Colin Avery both got aboard with no outs to show an early opportunity for the Raiders, but they were left stranded as the Cougars forced three consecutive infield pop-outs to end the threat.
A nothing-nothing score in the second gave way in the bottom half of the inning after Midway’s defense was again proficient in the top half. Grant Barefoot got things started after he got aboard by way of a fielder’s choice. Hunter Gainey followed suit with a line drive back to the pitcher, which ricocheted off his glove and slowly trickled through the infield. When the defense finally scooped up the ball, the throw to first went errant and the runners took extra bases with Barefoot to third and Gainey over to second. The next hit came from Sawyer Sutton, who hit a shot into the outfield that scored Barefoot and Wilson to give the Raiders a 2-0 lead.
Jump to the third inning and Midway repeated their success and then some. Nate Smith got a single to center field and was advanced two batters later when Wiggins drew a 1-out walk. Barefoot then hit a single to left field that scored Smith, making it 3-0. Gainey followed things up with another fielder’s choice in which the Cougars attempted a double play. Barefoot was thrown out at second, but the throw to first was off the mark and Gainey was safe with Wiggins scoring to make it 4-0. The final run of the inning was another big from Sutton, who hit a double into center to score Gainey to make it 5-0.
Goldsboro got one run back in the top of the fourth when Peyton Wilkins got a hit to start the inning and was scored by a single into right field by Cole McFatter.
With the score now 5-1, the Raiders went right back to work to in their half of the fourth. Avery reached on another error and Wilson hit a double to right field to put runners in scoring position with no outs. Smith hit into another error at shortstop that scored Avery to make it 6-1. Then, Wiggins hit a deep flyball that was caught for out number two, but Wilson was scored on the play to make it 7-1. The final run of the inning came from another Barefoot hit, who hit the ball deep into right to score Smith, pushing the margin to 8-1.
The Cougars got two more runs in the top of the fifth to make it 8-3, then the bottom of the fifth and top of the sixth passed by uneventfully.
The bottom of the sixth, however, is when things quickly reached its end.
Wilson led the inning off with a solo homerun to right field, making it 9-2, then hits from Smith and Casey Culbreth and a walk by Wiggins loaded the bases with no outs. Two batter laters, Gainey was walked to score Smith, making it 10-3, then Sutton hit another shot deep into the outfield to score Culbreth, making it 11-3. Jonathan Cooper ended the game on the next at-bat when he crushed a triple into the outfield to score everyone on base to close the books on a 13-3 victory.
The Raiders had solid production from top to bottom of their lineup. Cooper, Sutton, Wilson, Smith, and Barefoot were all credited with two hits each. Sutton had four RBIs followed by Barefoot and Cooper with two apiece. Wiggins and Wilson each had one RBI.
Hair went five innings on the mound for Midway, tallying five strikeouts, five hits, three walks, and five runs. Sutton pitched the final inning, recording three strikeouts and one walk with no runs.
With the win, Midway is now 6-0 on the season and is 4-0 in ECC play. They were slated for three games this week, including one on Monday night against Clinton, but COVID issues have prompted a cancellation of Tuesday’s game against Spring Creek with Friday’s game also uncertain.
Reach Sports Editor Daron Barefoot at [email protected].