Knoxville 10 Williamsburg 3

Saturday June 20, 2009

by Don French

After being kept silent by Mt. Pleasant only moments before, the Knoxville bats exploded early and often against Williamsburg in the Panthers' second game of the Williamsburg Tournament. Ten runs in the first two innings blew the game open early and allowed Knoxville to coast to a 10-3 win over the Raiders.

Starting pitcher Lance Daugherty gave himself a 2-0 lead in the top of the first, lacing a double to right-center which drove in both Blake McWilliams and Mike Jacks. But that was only a warm-up for the barrage that the Panthers would open up in the second frame.

The first five Panther hitters all reached base before Williamsburg could record the first out. Zach Lenger and Corey Collins led the way with RBI base hits. Mike Jacks drove in two more runs with a double just inside the third-base bag. Then Daugherty singled and was later driven in by Nathan Hegwood's single. Hegwood later scored his second run of the inning on a wild pitch. When the smoke cleared, the Panthers had collected six hits in the inning, been aided by two Raider errors, scored eight more runs and taken a 10-0 lead.

The Panthers got only two more hits and no runs the rest of the game, but they already had more than enough. Daugherty allowed three runs over 4.1 innings to get the win, and Jamie VanderVeer shut out the Raiders over the final 1.2 frames.

With the win, the Panthers improved their season record to 8-10 overall. Knoxville resumes conference play on Monday, when they travel to Oskaloosa for a JV/Varsity game.