Chocowinity 15U wins one in state tournament
Published 4:52 pm Monday, July 18, 2016
- Jeremiah Moore hurls a pitch in a game during the state tournament this past weekend. He and Cody Modlin split up pitching duties in Saturday’s win. (Corey Keenan/WDN)
GREENVILLE — Chocowinity’s 15U all stars pulled off one win in the North Carolina State tournament Saturday before dropping a pair of games in the double-elimination tournament Sunday against Nash and Pitt County’s teams.
Cody Modlin and Jeremiah Moore combined for seven innings of work against Lumber River West Saturday while allowing five runs on seven hits.
While Chocowinity’s side had a first-round bye Friday, Lumber River West made a monumental comeback after trailing 8-0 in its first game to stay in the winner’s bracket.
Chocowinity proved too much for Lumber River in round two, however, as it prevailed 7-5.
Modlin tossed 4 1/3 innings and allowed four runs on six hits in the start. The right hander flooded the strike zone and kept the Lumber River batters off balance with his breaking ball. He racked up six strikeouts before handing the ball off to Moore, who finished the job from there.
Chocowinity head coach Donell Albritton said Modlin did not know he would be starting the game until the team got to the field Saturday and the youngster performed admirably.
“It was my defense behind me really,” Modlin said after the win. “I put strikes in there, they hit them and we made plays.”
Moore took over with two runners on in the fifth frame and walked the first batter he faced to load the bases. After walking in the fourth run of the game for Lumber River, Moore settled in and got a ground out from Lumber River’s No. 9 hitter to end the inning and leave the bases loaded.
“That was big,” Albritton said. “Because if they score there and they get on top of us then we’ve only got two innings left (to score). The way our hitting was coming out of districts, we believe we can hit it, but there was a little doubt I was seeing. That was huge for him to hold them where they were at.”
Moore struck out three over the next two innings and had a clean frame in the sixth. Leading 7-4 in the seventh, Moore ran into a little trouble after hitting the leadoff batter and surrendering a single to the follow up man. However, Moore promptly picked off the runner on second and got the second out on a ground out.
After a clean defensive game for six innings, Chocowinity committed its first error of the game with two outs in the seventh and Lumber River West’s fifth and final run came around to score. Moore shook off the blunder by his defense and got the final batter of the game to strike out swinging.
Albritton called Moore his workhorse and it was clear why in the final three frames of the second-round victory.
Modlin helped his own cause offensively as he gave his team a 2-1 lead in the second inning with an RBI single. Chocowinity started to pull away with a three-run second inning as Tripp Bonner also recorded an RBI.
Right fielder Colby Chase knocked in Jarrett O’Neal with an RBI single in the third to make it a 4-1 game at the time.
After Lumber River made it a one-run game in the bottom half, smart base running helped widen the gap. Cody Pinkham took home on a wild pitch. In the sixth, Chocowinity’s offense gave Moore the cushion he would need to finish the game. After a Chase single and Harrison Schmidt reached on an error, Will Crisp and Tyler Rowe notched back-to-back RBI to cement a win.
“Great effort from the guys,” Albritton said. “Total team effort and they hit the ball a lot better than we hit it in districts last week and that was key. We pitched the ball well too and cut down on the walks and the defense was solid behind them.”
Sunday was not so fortunate for the Beaufort County team as it lost its first game of the day to Nash County and fell to Greenville late Sunday night to drop out of the tournament.