Leader sports editor
The Gwatney Chevrolet Senior American Legion team suffered a regular-season ending loss to Benton on Tuesday at Dupree Park in Jacksonville. The SportsShop team never trailed after building a 5-0 lead in five innings. Jacksonville rallied for four in the bottom of the sixth, but that’s all it could muster as the visiting team went on to win 7-4.
“We just didn’t hit the ball,” Jacksonville coach Bob Hickingbotham said. “Our pitching was OK. We threw three different pitchers. Jared Wilson struggled a little bit in the first inning, but after that we threw the ball pretty well. It was our hitting that let us down.”
Benton scored three runs in the top of the first. Wilson didn’t give up another run through his three innings of work. Kenny Cummings pitched the next two innings. He held Benton scoreless in the fourth, and gave up two runs on a hit and an error in the fifth. Xavier Brown pitched the final two innings, also giving up two runs on just one hit, but he walked two to help Benton add to its lead.
“We put five on base with walks and hit batters,” Hickingbotham said. “That helped them out, but we didn’t give up many base hits.”
Each team got just four base hits.
All four of Jacksonville’s runs came with two outs in the sixth inning to cut a 5-0 deficit to 5-4. After Benton scored two in the top of the seventh, Jacksonville went down in order in the bottom of the seventh to end the game.
Alex Tucker got two of Gwatney’s four hits to lead all players in the game.
