By Christian Malone
VALDOSTA — Lowndes High’s baseball team swept Newton Friday, and moved on to the second round of the Class AAAAA tournament.
The Vikings (15-12) won the first game 12-0 in five innings, then completed the sweep with a 7-1 win in game 2 at Noel George Field.
Lowndes will host Chapel Hill in a second-round doubleheader on Wednesday.
Lowndes dominated the first game in all facets. The Vikings’ hitters pounded out 11 hits and scored 12 runs, while Matt McCall threw a two-hit shutout.
Lowndes put the game away quickly. The Vikings scored five runs in the first inning and 12 in the first three innings.
The onslaught began in the bottom of the first. Adam Rigoni singled to lead off the first, and Brandon Gilbert was hit by a pitch. Zac Freeman came up to the plate, and ripped a long fly ball to deep right center. Rigoni and Gilbert raced home, and Freeman wound up on third with a triple. Cole Fuller, who signed with Florida Community College in Jacksonville earlier Friday, beat out an infield single, and Freeman scored, making it 3-0.
Fuller was caught stealing, but Mike Moore walked and Sam Hoff singled, putting two men on. Lee Rewis followed with an RBI single, giving the Vikings a 4-0 lead. One out later, Bryant Alonso singled home Hoff, making it 5-0.
Leading off the second, Gilbert crushed a long fly ball that disappeared over the fence, between the Steel’s Jewelry and Elder’s Auto Sales signs in right-center, for a solo home run. Freeman followed with a ground rule double that rolled under the fence in the right field corner. Freeman went to third on a ground out and scored on Moore’s sacrifice fly to center, increasing Lowndes’ lead to 7-0.
The Vikings exploded again in the bottom of the third, scoring five more runs. For the second straight inning, the first batter of the inning homered for Lowndes. This time, it was Gabe Cason, who drilled a long fly ball over the fence in center field.
After Cason’s homer, Alonso beat out an infield single, Rigoni reached on an error and a wild pitch moved both runners up a base. Gilbert waked, and that was the end of the day for Newton starter Darius Hill. Freeman greeted reliever Brian Breckon with a two-run single to right, increasing the Vikings’ lead to 10-0. Fuller’s fly ball scored Gilbert, and Freeman later scored on a wild pitch, making it 12-0.
The game ended after the top of the fifth on the mercy rule.
Matt McCall was dominant for the Vikings, throwing five shutout innings and allowing the Rams very little. McCall threw first-pitch strikes to 16 of the 17 batters he faced, and only had to throw 65 pitches to earn the victory. He struck out nine batters.
McCall retired the first seven batters he faced, and took a no-hitter into the fourth. He also fanned at least one batter every inning, and struck out the side in the second.
The closest Newton came to scoring was the fourth inning, when Jason Knight and D.J. Hill singled to start the inning, with the Rams’ only hits of the game. But McCall retired the next three hitters, and struck out Nick Hembree with runners on the corners to end the threat.
Lowndes 7, Newton 1
Lowndes got another strong outing in the second game. Cason limited Newton to three hits and one run in six innings, and struck out 10.
Gilbert hit another home run, this one a two-run shot to right, in the third inning. That homer gave the Vikings a 2-0 lead, and that would turn out to be the game-winning hit.
Lowndes extended its lead with a four-run fourth, sending 10 batters to the plate. Three straight singles by Fuller, Jayson Wilson and Hoff loaded the bases, then Rewis’ single scored two runs, making it 4-0. Cason’s sacrifice fly brought home Hoff, and Alonso’s RBI double scored Rewis with the final run of the inning.
In the top of the sixth, Rigoni walked and later scored on a ground out by Freeman, making it 7-1. That was all Cason and the Vikings would need to win the game, and move on to the next round.
