Eagles Win In Walk-Off Against Waynesville

It was an even matchup most of the game on Friday at Sullivan between the Eagles and Waynesville.

Seth Valley’s squeeze bunt scored the winning run to give Sullivan a 4-3 walk-off victory.

Tyler Hopen was the first on the mound for Sullivan and pitched an amazing six innings. He stared the game with two strikeouts back to back at the top of the second. The Eagles stepped up to bat at the bottom of the second with an added motivation. After two outs, Jordan Rice hit a ball in the hole in the outfield and secured a single. Cambrian Koch found himself on base, and Valley hit a sacrifice ball and got the RBI to put Sullivan on the board.

Waynesville answered back to tie up the game at the top of the third. At the top of the fifth, the Tigers added to their lead. It stared with a double. Then Waynesville hit a sacrifice fly to score the RBI and the Tigers took the lead.

In the bottom of the sixth, Dayton Skaggs was the first batter to single. Hopen was walked right after. Trey Behrens singled and the bases were loaded. Waynesville decided to make a pitching change. Rice hit another ball that split the outfielders and the score was tied. The Eagles brought in Koch to relief Hopen at the top of the seventh.

The Tigers extended their lead that started with a double by the first batter at the top of the eighth.  Waynesville scored and Sullivan was up to bat.

Hopen first singled on an overthrow by the Tigers. Behrens then blasted a huge triple that scored Hopen and tied the game. The bases were loaded after Waynesville decided to intentionally walk Rice who was on fire the whole game. Koch came up to bat but Head Coach Ian Whitson called a pinch hit and brought in Valley. Valley laid down a perfect squeeze bunt that scored in the winning run.

Sullivan finished with 11 hits on the game and committed no errors. Hopen went 2-2 and Koch went 3-3, both with RBIs on the day. Behrens went 2-4 on the day with a stolen base and a RBI. Valley finished 2-4 and a RBI.

Hopen recorded seven strikeouts in total and  only gave up five hits and two runs on six innings. Koch pitched for two innings and only gave up one run and two hits. He struckout two batters.