By GRAHAM POWELL
Leader sportswriter
Trailing 3-0 after two innings of play, the Cabot Centennial Bank Red junior American Legion team scored 12 unanswered runs to rout Sylvan Hills 12-3 in four innings of play on Thursday at the Sherwood Sports Complex.
Cabot (2-4) scored 11 of those runs with two outs in the top of the fourth inning, which was pleasing to see for Cabot Red coach David Smith.
“Their pitcher struggled a little bit finding the strike zone and we took advantage of it,” Smith said. “(Braden) Jarnagin had a big hit with the bases loaded that cleared them and that helped out a lot and got us rolling. But other than that it was just good approaches at the plate, finally not swinging at bad pitches. That’s what we like to call being aggressively-selective.”
Cabot trailed 3-1 entering the fourth inning. Lino Garcia started the rally with a double to right field and Austin Jones and Ethan Holland reached base safely to load the bases for Jarnagin, who cleared them with a two-out double.
Bruins’ starter Carson Sanders was pulled after giving up the hit to Jarnagin, but the move proved to be detrimental as the next five Cabot batters walked. Jarnagin scored the fifth run for Cabot on a passed ball at the plate.
Runs six and seven for Cabot came as the result of walks with the bases loaded. Austin Jones drove in the eighth run for Centennial Bank with an infield single to third base, which allowed Jarrett Pitchford to score.
Holland came around to bat again and walked with the bases loaded to send Jacob Womack across the plate, and Mike Havard put runs 10 and 11 on the board with a single down the right-field line. Holland scored the final run of the game on a balk while at third base.
The Bruins (1-3) failed to add any runs to the board in the fifth inning, and after the third out was recorded, the game was called because the one-hour, 45-minute time limit had expired. Seth Cummings earned the win on the hill for Cabot.
Cummings threw all five innings and gave up just two hits and three walks while recording four strikeouts.
“He did well,” Smith said. “There were a few times, you know, that he struggled finding his spots, but he figured it out and rebounded well from his last performance. He did a very good job of locating and delivering the right pitches.”
After a scoreless first inning, Sylvan Hills scored three runs in the bottom of the second to take a 3-0 lead, but couldn’t get anything going after that.
Sanders singled to centerfield to get on base for the Bruins in the second inning, and he scored two batters later on a bad throw to first base by Cummings after a routine ground ball by Reid Atkinson.
Cummings gave up another run later in the inning on a balk with a runner at third base, and Jacob Riggs drove in the final run for Sylvan Hills with a sacrifice fly to right-centerfield, which allowed Atkinson to score.
“I mean, if we don’t have that one inning and we get that out, I guarantee you we would’ve won that game,” said Sylvan Hills coach Matt Presson of his team’s collapse in the fourth inning. “We walked too many people and they know that and the errors are what got them, but hopefully we can take care of that now and come district we won’t have to worry about that kind of stuff.”
The Cabot Red Centennial Bank team will play again Monday at home against North Little Rock. That game starts at 5:30 p.m. Sylvan Hills will play again today in a doubleheader at home against Jacksonville. The first game is scheduled for 2 p.m.