Trojans Crush Bradley, 12-2, To Go 7-0 In 5-AAA (Photos)

Soddy-Daisy is still in the clean air.

Shortstop Justin Cooke and designated hitter Grant Cordell combined for four hits, eight RBIs and three runs scored Monday night as Soddy-Daisy turned a tight game into a rout with a seven-run sixth inning and clobbered visiting Bradley Central, 12-2, in a District 5-AAA baseball game at Tom Higgins Field.

The win pushes the Trojans to 11-5 overall and 7-0 in league play while every other team in the district has lost at least two games.

Bradley Central fell to (5-9-1, 3-3).

“We’re not going to get ahead of ourselves,” Trojans coach Jared Hensley said. “Going up to Bradley (Tuesday) is going to be tough. Then we have McMinn County and East Hamilton in our last series. We’ve got a long way to go.”

The two teams play again Tuesday night at Bradley’s Toby McKenzie Baseball Complex in Cleveland. Game time is 7 p.m. Bears coach Travis Adams will go with right-handed ace Ty King while Trojans coach Jared Hensley is keeping his options open.

“Gavin Rogers gives us a decent matchup with them and Andy Wright didn’t throw many pitches tonight, so I’m sure he could come back and give us a few innings. And Colin Kearney has thrown well.”

King beat the Trojans, 1-0, in the district tournament championship last May and Kearney went into the seventh inning with a three-hit shutout. The Bears put two runners on base, Oz Perez came on in relief and gave up a bases-loaded single to Austin Calfee that produced the game’s only run.

King normally is the Bears’ Monday starter, but coach Travis Adams, after discussions with his staff, decided to go with right-hander Chandler Hamilton in the series opener.

Had Bradley beaten the Trojans on Monday they would have been in a strong position to sweep with King on the mound the next day.

“Trust me,” Adams said, “we weren’t thinking ahead like that. We’re playing these games one at a time.”

Bradley Central wasted one-out, bases-loaded opportunity in the second against Maynor, who fanned Tanner Cox to end that threat.

The Bears got to the left-handed Maynor an inning late.

Tyler Carpenter singled to right, Calfee followed with a hit to almost the same spot and Gunner Norwood walked. Carpenter scored when designated hitter Jeremiah Sims hit into a double play and Hamilton helped his own cause with a RBI single.

Maynor needed 77 pitches to get through three innings because he couldn’t find his rhythm and Hensley verbally challenged his senior to locate it quickly.

“I couldn’t put things together,” Maynor said. “After the third inning Hensley gave me a pretty good chewing, but that doesn’t bother me like some guys who don’t like to be yelled at. I love it.”

Like a light switch being flicked on, Maynor found his groove and retired the last six he faced, including four of his nine strikeouts.

“My pitch county was a concern,” Maynor said. “The coaches wanted me to get them through five and that’s what I did.”

Maynor wound up throwing 100 pitches, 60 for strikes, but needed 24 to get through the fourth and fifth innings.

As Maynor settled in, Hensley settled down.

“He ran his pitch-count really high,” Hensley said. “But after the third he settled down and was strong over his final two innings. We felt good about Andy coming out of the bullpen and he comes in and goes 1-2-3 on nine pitches.”

The Trojans, who took a 1-0 lead in the first Chandler Sulcer scored on Rogers’ fielder’s choice, adjusted to Hamilton’s nasty breaking ball and came up with four runs in the third inning.

Hamilton whiffed Tre Carter for the second of our times and Sulcer bounced out.

Dillon Clift was hit by a pitch. Rogers and Wright walked. Hamilton hit Cordell, forcing in a run.

Cooke took a strike and then ripped a clutch three-run double that barely tailed away from Bears left-fielder Logan Newberry and rolled into the corner.

“We started off kind of slow, but that double brought us back to life,” the left-handed hitting Cooke said. “The pitch died away, I stayed on it and went to the opposite field with the ball. I thought that set us up to get the momentum going our way.”

Hamilton struck out Rogers to end the Trojans’ fourth with runners at second and third. He did the same thing in the fifth, walking Wright and yielding a hit to Cordell, who went 2-for-3 with four RBIs and two runs scored. Cooke and Levi Thornton struck out and Cale Morgan grounded out.

Hamilton and reliever Chuck Hammonds weren’t so lucky an inning later.

Carter struck out to open the sixth. Sulcer singled to right, was wild-pitched to second and moved to third when Rogers reached on Cox’s fielding error at second. Hammons, a right-handed submariner, came on in relief and struck out Wright.

Cordell greeted Hammons’ first pitch with a sweet-spot double to left that cleared the bases and stretched the Trojans’ lead to 8-2.

“They had been throwing me first-pitch fastballs all night,” Cordell said. “Coach told me to move up in the box and wait for a high one because a submariner’s pitches sometimes hang a little bit up. I didn’t feel the ball hit my bat, I just watched it go.”

Cooke and Levi Thornton, hitless in three earlier plate appearances, each added RBI singles and Thornton scored when Morgan reached on Cox’s second error of the inning.

Carter atoned for his four strikeouts by unloading a run-scoring triple to cap eight seven-run uprising and end the game.

“Our margin of error is not much,” Adams said. “If we give somebody four or five outs it just snowballs. We don’t have a reset button and we can’t go back in time and take innings away. We have to play through it.”

The Bears simply could not close out an inning on Monday. All 12 Soddy-Daisy runs scored after two were out. And all seven in the sixth inning were unearned.

The result is that Soddy-Daisy still has the clean air, to use a NASCAR metaphor, that accompanies its top spot atop the standings. The Trojans are at least two games up on all six of their league challengers.

“Us being out front feels good,” Thornton said. “But we have to keep playing strong. The farther we go undefeated the better off we’ll be for the district tournament.”

Cooke and Cordell combined to go 4-for-7 with eight RBIs and two runs scored out of the Nos. 6 and 7 spots in the Trojans’ lineup.

LINESCORE

Bradley Central                           002 000 – 2 3 2

Soddy-Daisy                                 104 007 – 12 9 0

Hamilton and Mantooth; Maynor, Wright (6) and Clift.

(E-mail Larry Fleming at larryfleming44@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter @larryfleming44)