By T. Scott Boatright
CHOUDRANT — The Choudrant Aggies made it 2-0 in District 2B play Thursday night as the Aggies dominated Downsville on the mound and at the plate with a 13-2 win in five innings.
That came after Choudrant defeated Downsville 18-3 on Tuesday. Thursday night’s win pushed the Aggies to a record of 8-11.
“It was a district win, so that makes it big in itself,” Aggies coach Joel Antley said after Thursday’s win over the Demons. “We’ve been in a lot of tight ball games. We’ve had four extra-inning games and five other games that were decided in the last inning. So we could very well be flip-flopped in losses.
“We’ve played solid for most of the year. We’re fairly young, so we’re still building experience. We’ve only had our main starting group out on the field at the same time three games so far. This was a good win, especially coming off another big one over Downsville on Tuesday.”
Choudrant dominated on the mound in Thursday’s contest, with Colton Smith starting and picking up the win while Braden Bagwell, Eli Callendar and Cash Camp all saw action in relief and combined for the three-hit victory.
Downsville struggled on the mound, giving up 10 hits and 10 walks to the Aggies.
The Aggies jumped out to an early 4 -1 advantage in the bottom of the opening stanza largely thanks to two walks and two hit by pitches thrown to the first four Choudrant batters.
Cash’s sacrifice fly with one run already on the scoreboard accounted for the game’s first RBI while Austin Bagwell’s two-RBI single rounded out the first inning scoring for the Aggies.
Choudrant made it 5 -1 in the bottom of the second inning with Smith’s sacrifice fly scoring Josh Sellers with the Demons adding another one run in the top of the third to cut the Aggies’ advantage to 5-2.
But the Aggies broke things open with seven runs in the bottom of the third.
Braden Bagwell’s two-RBI single started things off with TJ Smith and Callendar each adding RBIs before Wade Watson chipped in with two more runs batted in.
That allowed Antley to play some of his back-ups in the fourth inning, with Camp recording another RBI in the bottom half by singling in Max Milton in the bottom half of the fourth for the games final run.
“Whenever we get an opportunity to get these young kids some game experience like we did tonight, you can’t beat that,” Antley said. “You cannot replicate game situations in practice, with the tension and the nerves, concentration and focus. Nothing compares to a real game.
“And we’ve been able to do that some this year with sickness and injuries. So it was good to be able to do it again and pick up a big win in the process.”
Camp moved from left field to the mound in the top of the fifth, forcing a three up and three down situation for the Demons to close out the contest.
Next up for Choudrant are games against Pitkin at 1:30 p.m. today and versus Maurepas at 11:15 on Saturday morning.
“We swap hosting the Class B Baseball Bash with Maurepas every other year, and this is our year to hold it,” Antley said. “We’re excited about it. Getting the down-south teams up here so we can get an eyeball on them before the postseason is a really good thing. There’s going to be a lot of goot baseball played on this field the next two days.”
Following is the schedule for this year’s Class B Baseball Bash to be played on Tony Antley Field.
Today:
• Quitman vs. Holden, 9 a.m.
• Weston vs. Stanley, 11:15 a.m.
• Pitkin vs. Choudrant, 1:30 p.m.
• Converse vs. Maurepas, 3:45 p.m.
• Zwolle vs. Simsboro, 6 p.m.
Saturday:
• Simsboro vs. Holden, 9 a.m.
• Maurepas vs. Choudrant, 11:15 a.m.
• Converse vs. Pitkin, 1:30 p.m.
• Zwolle vs. Weston, 3:45 p.m.
• Quitman vs. Stanley, 6 p.m.
