Red Devils sweep Billingsley to advance in baseball playoffs
Published 7:39 am Saturday, April 26, 2014
Billingsley’s Dalton Davis, left, reaches first base before Maplesville’s Nathan Bush can throw him out during the second round of the Class 1A baseball playoffs on Friday.
By Brandon Sumrall | Special to the Advertiser
Another round of this year’s high school baseball playoffs is in the books after Friday night’s action, and with two wins (8-0 and 16-2) over area rival Billingsley, the Maplesville Red Devils survived to play another day.
Back-to-back RBI for the Bush Brothers gave the Red Devils their first runs of the day; a single up the middle for Nathan scored Brett Walker, and a sacrifice fly to right field by Zach scored Chase Girlie.
A Damian Mitchell single to the right side scored Nathan Bush, and Mitchell later scored on a passed ball to give Maplesville a 4-0 lead.
Maplesville’s Brett Walker (right) slides safely into home for one of the Red Devils’ runs on Friday.
After a three-up and three-down inning by the Bears in the third, a lead off walk to start the fourth inning accounted for no runs on the board for the visitors as they continued to trail 4-0.
Nathan Bush scored on a Brandon Abbott sacrifice fly in the bottom half of the fourth inning, and Brett Walker reached base on a double up the middle to later be driven in by a Nathan Bush single up the middle in the fifth.
Mitchell started the sixth inning off with a single to left field and was driven in by a Colby Chambers double to right.
Trent Smitherman plated Chambers on an infield ground ball, and Maplesville took an 8-0 lead to the top of the seventh inning.
With Jarrett Acreman on second base after reaching on a fielder’s choice, and Thomas Nichols on with a single, a ground ball hit to Nathan Bush brought the first game of the best-of-three series to its end.
Unfortunately for the visiting Bears, things wouldn’t go any better for in Game 2.
Playing as the away team, the Red Devils started the top of the first inning off with two runs on a Smitherman double to left-center field that scored Abbott and Chambers.
Two lead off walks to the Bears netted them no runs in the bottom half of the inning as they trailed after one inning of play, 2-0.
A bases loaded triple by Trevor Wallace gave the Red Devils three more runs in the top half of the second inning while the Maplesville defense retired the Bears in order in the bottom half.
