12-run frame sends Tornadoes past Red Devils

RED SPRINGS — It may have been a warm spring day, but the snowball just kept growing and growing. By the time Red Springs could get three outs, a Fairmont avalanche had occurred.

Fairmont struck for 12 runs in the third inning Tuesday in an inning that had a little bit of everything, taking charge for a 15-2 victory over homestanding Red Springs.

“We were able to pass it down; a guy steps in the box and does his job and passes it down, and we did a pretty good job of that tonight,” Fairmont coach Kelly Chavis said. “The guys, they really responded, and with a lot of positivity. That’s the message I’ve been preaching to them, positivity within our team.”

Fairmont (7-10, 3-2 Southeastern Athletic Conference) led 3-2 after two innings. After Austin Locklear led off with a bloop single and took second on a wild pitch, he was sacrificed to third by Jayden Hunt and scored on a wild pitch. Jamarion Brown scored when Parker Chavis was hit by a pitch and Jacob Jacobs scored when Nehemiah Chavis drew a bases-loaded walk to make it a 6-2 game.

“I came in, I knew we had runners in scoring position so I was just trying to hit a hard ground ball somewhere,” Parker Chavis said. “I got lucky, got hit by the pitch and got an RBI.

Kyland Strickland came home on a wild pitch, and an error allowed Parker Chavis and Nehemiah Chavis to both come home for a 9-2 Tornadoes lead. Kenley Callahan scored on another wild pitch and Austin Locklear and Jayden Hunt both scored on a double steal, taking the lead to 12-2. Strickland’s two-RBI double plated Jamarion Brown and Jacobs and a Parker Chavis RBI single rounded out the scoring, driving in Strickland for a 15-2 lead.

“Coach told me before the game, I have a tendency to try and pull everything, and just tweaked my swing down a little bit, changed a few things and it worked out fine,” Kyland Strickland said.

“I came up, I believe Kyland was on base, just tried to get something over the infield and happened to score the run,” Parker Chavis said.

Fairmont had five hits and drew six walks and one hit by pitch in the frame, while Red Springs committed two errors.

“It’s baseball, and I tell my guys all the time on any given day any team can be beat, and we were just on the bad end of the stick tonight,” Matt Strickland said. “Offensively, we didn’t do a job, defensively we were terrible, and of course we didn’t get it done on the mound as well.:

Austin Locklear and Kyland Strickland had two hits each in the game for Fairmont; Kyland Strickland and Parker Chavis had two RBIs apiece. Austin Locklear scored three runs and Callahan, Brown, Jacobs, Kyland Strickland and Parker Chavis scored two each.

“We came out, we wanted to hit the ball, we put the ball in play and made some things happen, moved station to station and scored some runs,” Parker Chavis said. “We just came into this game wanting to be positive and wanting to keep it to ourself. We came out and we hit the ball, we just passed it on down the line, scored some runs, kept it going, everything was going good and we just built off everybody’s energy.”

Xzavier Sinclair had two hits for Red Springs.

Fairmont took a 2-0 lead in the first inning after RBI singles by Hunt and Brown, and added a second-inning run on an R.J. Deese sacrifice bunt to plate Parker Chavis for a 3-0 lead.

“Our guys, they stepped up to the challenge that we kind of presented to them,” Kelly Chavis said. “We’ve got to beat the game; I know that’s cliche, but I felt like we did that tonight.”

Red Springs cut the lead to 3-2 on Shane Jones’ two-RBI double in the second, driving home Tim Hammonds and Terry Locklear.

The teams meet again Thursday in Fairmont as part of a two-game Southeastern Athletic Conference series. Red Springs hopes to regroup and play a more competitive game in the series finale.

“I’ve told these guys that at a very minimum, we always need to split,” Matt Strickland said. “Of course, you’d always love to win both games, but at a minimum, we’ve at least got to split both games, and at the end of the day, I truly believe this conference we’re playing in is one of the best conferences in the surrounding counties, and every conference game we win, you really have to earn it, because everybody in this conference is pretty much up to par. … But we’ve got to show up Thursday and flush it quick, and all we’ve got to do is show up and play good baseball like I know we’re capable of and things will turn around.”