Glenwood racks up 15 hits in victory over rival Lee-Scott

Glenwood baseball coach Tim Fanning said after his team’s game against Lee-Scott on Tuesday that it had not done as good of a job of playing small ball and manufacturing runs in recent games.

That was before Tuesday. On Tuesday, the Gators seemed to have no problem.

All nine batters recorded at least one hit, five of them had an extra-base hit, six drove in at least one run and seven crossed the plate at least once. Put it together, and it was a 12-2 win by the Gators to improve to 19-1 overall and 2-0 in region play this season.

Glenwood scored at least one run in five of the six innings played and had multi-run innings in the third through the sixth innings, scoring three, four, two and two runs to come away with the 10-run victory.

“It was good to see a small-ball game, because we haven’t been executing that a lot lately,” Fanning said. “We’ve got a lot of team speed, and that’s kind of how we’re built. Fortunately, we’ve got some guys in the middle who can produce for us.”

On Tuesday, it was the entire lineup, but particularly the 3-4-5 hitters. Tyler Cadenhead drove in a run with a double in the first inning, Carson Hicks one run in the third and Tyler Smith two runs in the third. By that point, the score was 4-1, and the Gators were on their way to a rout.

Smith finished with two hits and four RBIs, and Cadenhead with two RBIs. Chase Dennis, Hicks, Josh Brown and Brandon Moseley each finished with one. Dennis, Adams, Smith and Carson Allison each recorded two hits, and Jarrett Carter had three. Adams, Cadenhead, Smith, Carter and Moseley each recorded doubles in the game.

The offensive effort was enough to get the win, but Glenwood still got an impressive, if a little shaky, outing from pitcher Hicks. Hicks wasn’t his normal dominant self early in the game, struggling to find the zone and allowing his pitch count to escalate just a couple innings into the game. He walked three batters and hit three more, but Fanning said he did a good job making adjustments and settling in as the game wore on.

“He started throwing his slider for a strike, which is what kept his pitch count down,” Fanning said. “He got ahead with that, and that kind of leveled out his pitch count.”

By the end of the game, he had pitched six complete innings, allowing just five hits and two runs and striking out 12.

“Carson, for his standards, he was definitely wild early,” Fanning said. “But he figured it out and really held them at bay. He got in a pretty good rhythm and he started dominating the zone and kept his pitch count down.”

Glenwood, which plays a large schedule every season, is in the midst of a stretch where it will play seven games in 10 days. Fanning said it will rely on what has carried it so far this season, its senior leadership and depth on the mound. There haven’t been many innings to go around for his relievers up to this point because of the strength of his starters, but that is sure to change.

“It’s hard to get a lot of our relievers in the game because our starters have been so great,” Fanning said. “(Hicks) is 7-0 already. But there’s going to be plenty of innings over the next 10 days.”

This story was originally published March 15, 2016 at 8:08 PM with the headline "Glenwood racks up 15 hits in victory over rival Lee-Scott."