Welch seals the deal for HiToms at home
(Courtesy of Daniel Frey with HiToms Baseball)
High Point-Thomasville, N.C. – In what could have been a back and forth game, Logan Welch shut the door striking out six of the seven batters he faced on Wednesday night. The High Point-Thomasville HiToms (4-3) held on to win 6-4 over the Forest City Owls (4-2).
Forest City drew first blood with a long RBI single by AJ Bumpass bouncing off of the center field wall. As they’ve done earlier in the season, the HiToms would waste no time to answer. Two runners on, nobody out for Daniel Sullivan who bounced a ground ball up the middle but Brad Jarreau was caught leaning off of third but he dodged a tag attempt to score the early tying run.
An RBI sacrifice-fly by Zac Almond and an RBI groundout from Myles Kutscher handed the HiToms a 3-1 lead after the first inning.
David Fry connected on his first homer of the season on a deep fly ball to right center to put the HiToms ahead 4-1 after four innings of play.
Starting pitcher Jacob Norman struck out the side in the top of the third, he struck out six batters total but ran into some trouble in the top of the fifth. Another RBI single by Bumpass scored Forest City’s second run of the game and a couple of passed balls from reliever Kael Jones scored the other two runs to tie it up at 4.
HPT pushed across another run in the fifth to take the lead 5-4 and another cushion run was added in the bottom of the seventh on Carson Jackson’s first RBI of the year on a sac-fly.
Kael Jones (1-0) was pulled after 2 2/3 innings of work in favor of Logan Welch who promptly fanned six of the sever hitters that faced him including five in a run. Welch got Bumpass swinging to end the game with a 6-4 HiToms victory.
Ethan Carpenter (1-1) stuck it out for seven innings but earned his first loss of the season giving up four earned runs on eight hits.
The HiToms are back on the road with a short trip to Asheboro on Thursday, June 9 at 7:05 p.m at McCrary Park.