HINTON- Through eight games so far this season, the Greenbrier East Spartans have made at least one thing clear.
They know how to hit the baseball.
The Spartans got four home runs on the day before April Fool’s, but their offense is anything but a joke as they dismantled the Bobcats 14-4 in just five innings of play.
The power game began in the top of the first inning. After Zion Detko walked to lead off the game, Nelson Lynch took a 1-0 pitch and drove out to center field for a 2-run blast. Two batters later, Eli Green hit a solo shot to center, and Greenbrier East led 3-0.
The Bobcats answered with two runs of their own in the bottom half off Spartan starting pitcher Jake Roshau when Jake Boone laced a 2-run double. But Roshau settled down and got the next two hitters out and East led 3-2 after one.
Roshau then helped his own cause with a leadoff single in the second. A couple hitters later, Ashton Cochran got hit by a pitch that scored Roshau. Two consecutive singles from Brady May and Green extended the Spartan lead to 7-2 at that point.
Coleton Jones hit a 2-run home run for Summers County in the top of the third frame that cut the Bobcats deficit to 7-4, but again, Roshau calmed down and got the next three hitters out to preserve the lead of that same score after three innings.
Once the game moved to the fifth inning, the Spartans decided it was time to go home early, and their offense reciprocated with the same feeling. Graham Brewster opened with a home run and following two straight outs, East rallied. A single from Braden Teaney and two walks to Lynch and Cochran loaded the bases for May. On the very first pitch from Jones, who was on in relief, May put the ball over the right field fence for a grand slam and a 14-4 Spartan lead, as he essentially iced the 10-run rule himself.
Greenbrier East (6-2) had nine total hits in the game with four being home runs.
May drove in six runs on top of his 2-3 night at the plate. Green (2-5, HR, run, two RBIs) and Brewster (2-3, HR, run, RBI) both collected two hits. Cochran had three RBIs despite not recording an official base hit.
Roshau pitched four innings, allowed four hits, four runs, and struck out one and picked up the win. May had three strikeouts in one inning of relief work.
Ryan Oliverio gave up six earned runs in four innings of work for the Bobcats (3-4).
The Spartans get a day off on Tuesday and will hit the road to Princeton this Wednesday, April 4.
