VALDOSTA – The Lowndes Vikings christened the new turf at newly-renovated Noel George Field with a win.

The Vikings (1-0) scored four of their nine runs in the bottom of the second inning to defeat the crosstown rival Valdosta Wildcats 9-4 Monday night.

The ‘Cats (0-2) took a 1-0 lead in the top of the first as starting pitcher JD Smith led off with a single and later scored on a Nyk Emerson line drive double.

The Valdosta lead lasted until the bottom of the second inning as Smith began to find trouble. Junior Maddox Harrell led off with a single, followed by a bunt into a fielders’s choice by Tate Sirmans and senior Gavin Brown reaching on an error to load the bases.

Weston Turner drew a walk from Smith to tie the game at a run apiece. Then the Vikings went in front as Carson Page delivered a ground out RBI to bring in Sirmans for a 2-1 lead.

Starting pitcher Mason Steel doubled on a fly ball to right field that appeared to be caught, but was ruled an infield hit despite a protest from Valdosta head coach Brad Porter. The double brought in Brown and Turner for a 4-1 advantage.

“They had one big inning where they executed and we didn’t,” Porter said. “They put up a 4 spot in that inning. They beat us by five. So that inning was significant in the baseball game.”

The ‘Cats responded with an RBI double by Eli Batts and sacrifice fly by Cohen Smith to bring in Isaiah Haygood to pull within a run at 4-3. The quick two-run spurt gave the ‘Cats a jolt of momentum, but Steel made sure the lead wouldn’t be threatened as he struck out Emerson and Cole Porter to get out of the top of the third.

The Vikings came up with four more hits and two runs in the bottom half of the third and back-to-back bunt RBI singles pushed the Lowndes lead to 6-3.

From there, the ‘Cats went down 1-2-3 in the top of the fourth as Steel struck out Jordan Caraway, Demetrius Donaldson and EJ Miley in quick succession.

“They really started pounding us away and some of our guys decided to umpire instead of hit and you can’t do both. You’ve got to do one or the other,” Porter said. “They started pounding the ball away on us and our guys started taking some swings that were uncharacteristic instead of driving the ball the other way and trying to pull those outside pitches. You saw some balls that rolled over to the short stop, rolled over to the third baseman – things that we can fix, things that our guys are going to get better at because they work hard.”

The Vikings tacked on two more runs – one in the bottom of the fourth and another on a sac fly RBI by Steel to bring Carson Page around the score in the bottom of the fifth.

Steel opened his senior campaign with a solid outing, pitching four innings and allowing three runs on three hits with seven strikeouts and two walks to pick up the win. The North Georgia signee threw 39 of his 63 pitches for strikes.

On the opposing side, Valdosta starter JD Smith started well but began to fade in his three-inning performance. Smith, a Georgia State commit, allowed six hits, eight runs (two earned) and two walks with four strikeouts. Forty-seven of Smith’s 71 pitches went for strikes.

“We ran our starting pitcher’s pitch count up, which led to him getting fatigued early,” Porter said. “Tip your hat to those guys. Coach Page has got a ball club that’s bought in and doing a good job and we’ve got work to do. It is early. We absolutely wanting this kind of test early to kind of see where we were. I love my team. I love my guys. They get after it. They compete. They work hard. We’ve just got to improve in certain areas.”

The Vikings got two hits each from Steel, Sirmans, Daniel Kerrigan and Cooper Melvin with Steel accounting for a team-best three RBIs.

After a slow start to the 2021 season with a young and inexperienced roster, Porter and the ‘Cats enter the 2022 campaign with a bit more upperclassmen experience, although there are several upperclassmen that are getting their first taste of varsity ball.

“I think we’ve got a chance to be a very good offensive baseball team,” Porter said. “Coach (Bryan) McLain works with our hitters and does an outstanding job. It’s just (going to come down to) a young man buying in to the philosophy that we have. We want to be able to hit the ball to all fields. We want to be aggressive. We’re not a ball club that wants to sit back and wait for pitchers to walk us. If they’re gonna walk us, we’ll let ’em but we want to be the aggressors in the batter’s box. We’ve got to get better in that mindset.”

UP NEXT

Valdosta: Hosts Cross Creek and Colquitt on Saturday in doubleheader action. First pitch is scheduled for 1:30 p.m.

Lowndes: Faces Starr’s Mill in a neutral site game Friday at 6:30 p.m.

Shane Thomas is the sports editor at the Valdosta Daily Times.