Special to Greensborosports.com courtesy of Mike Ellis from the Jamestown News…..
Two rivals from the Piedmont Triad met at Ragsdale tonight with the Tigers coming away with the 3 – 2 win. It was a well played game by both teams and is the norm for this rivalry the margin of victory was one run.
Ragsdale got on the board first in the second inning. Ben Fultz led off with an infield single and Billy Stone followed sending the 1-0 pitch over the 350′ sign in center field to give Ragsdale the 2 – 0 lead. Southwest struck right back in the top of the third. With Elliott Slack on first with a fielder’s choice, second baseman Andrew Madden drove an 0-2 pitch over the fence in left center to tie the score at 2. In the bottom of the third, Desean Anderson got on with a walk, went to second on a Walt Sparks base hit on a bad hop bouncer past the third baseman and scored on a Fultz double to left field. The Fultz RBI would turn out to be the game winner.
Two left handers were on the mound with Billy Stone going for Ragsdale and Matt Orth pitching for SWG. Stone went 4 1/3 giving up two runs and two hits to pick up his third win as he moved to 3 – 0. Tyler Southcott came in in the top of the fifth with two the tying run on first and one out and threw one pitch to get the 5-4-3 double play to get out of the inning. Southcott went on to pitch 2 2/3 for the save as he gave up one hit and struck out two batters. Orth went six innings for the Cowboys giving up the 3 runs on 7 hits and striking out 8 batters.
With the win, Ragsdale moves to the top of the Piedmont Triad with a 3 – 0 conference record and 5 – 0 overall. Southwest suffers their first defeat of the season and go to 1 – 1 in Conference play and 5 – 1 overall.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 – R H E
Southwest Guilford 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 – 2 4 1
Ragsdale 0 2 1 0 0 0 x – 3 7 1
Southwest , well too bad
pretty obvious the previous poster isn’t Michael.
Was a real good game. Always are between these teams. I’m really impressed the way this Southcott kid throws. Nothing looks over powering but he throws strike after strike. Hope he can keep it up. Ragsdale D played great last night behind their pitchers. Fultz, Stone, Anderson and Sparks continue to hit the ball well. Another fun season to watch.
Mark, Thank you for putting Fultz and Stone before Anderson and Sparks in your comment. Ragsdale has many leaders……
Very true purist. Last night everyone stepped up. That was our best defensive game so far. Outside of who Mark has mentioned, Catawba signee Whited made several good plays, Hodges and Carstens made big plays at 3rd, Armwood used his speed in LF to turn 2 sure doubles into singles, Desjardins used his speed in RF, and the young Sparks hit 2 hard.
SWG is very talented. Orth looked very good. They saw one of our best efforts and that’s what it takes to beat SWG. Game could have easily gone either way.
next time I’m listing them alphabetically so I don’t get in trouble. Or maybe I’ll list them by number (biggest #s first). As for which order I put the names in I do believe I listed Southcott ( I mean #4) first. Everybody looks to those other guys to lead but it’s the ones you never expected that step up and deserve some recognition.
The defense was really sharp last night. Good to see.
I also think recognition should go out to the crew by the pressbox working over the ump. Those fellas worked hard trying to keep Blue straight last night.
I don’t think Mark was putting anyone before anyone else. He just listed a few names. I don’t think the order mattered.
How about the two girls that were doing the game PA announcing from the press box????
Very informative and helpful for the fans that don’t know the team all that well and it allows everyone to follow the game….
The walkup music was interesting too….I thought I heard Batista’s music from the WWE or it was some WWE star and the Electric Avenue was neat too….
Very balanced Tiger team and they have some kids like Armwood that I don’t remember being there last year, that will help out tremendously as the season moves on…..
Hard to beat a 3-2, one-run ball game in the first meeting between these two teams…
That Kyle Miller with SWG got my attention too. He is so small, but his overall game is large….Freshman Matt “Mo” Orth should just keep on getting better.
Game two between these two, would have to be a must see….
Kirk,
How did the JV game go between Ragsdale and SW, I was just wondering if any body stands out that will help out next year, looking at the rosters both teams will be loosing key seniors this year.
SWG looked very good in the JV game. They won something like 10-1. I think the catcher (Dell is his name I think) hit one out. I don’t know the pitcher but he looked pretty good as well. I also like Kellam at 3rd for SWG. I couldn’t notice a lot more. Ragsdale made too many mistakes. Both teams also had some kids playing up.
Orth was playing varsity for SWG and he pitched wonderfully. For Ragsdale Carstens starts at 3rd as a soph. Ragsdale has some good soph’s in Morrison and Blake. Ritter, Walker and Bryson should do well also. Hard to say anything else. They are so young you don’t know how they will turn out. If they go to work they could be good. But I liked a lot of the SWG players. Orth and Dell will be cornerstones for them.