Athens Drive baseball defeats Apex Friendship in five innings – News & Observer

The Athens Drive Jaguars only needed five innings to defeat Apex Friendship with a 10-0 win on Thursday night. With the victory, Athens Drive picked up its first Southwest Wake Athletic Conference win of the season.

Athens Drive recorded seven hits and had nine different batters drive in runs.

The Jaguars picked up their first run of the day when center fielder Keith Markovich led the game off with a single and would soon move to third off of two passed balls. Pitcher Lane Correll eventually recorded an RBI with a groundout to second base to give Athens Drive a 1-0 lead.

Athens Drive (2-7, 1-5) struck big in the bottom of the third where they picked up eight runs with a little help from the Patriots. Apex Friendship recorded three errors in the bottom half to keep the inning going and give the Jaguars a huge cushion.

Gorrell was superb for the Jaguars as he went all five innings giving up no runs, one hit, and only allowing three base runners. Gorrell had a no-hit bid going into the top of the fifth, but Apex Friendship left fielder Vincent Burlingame broke it up with a single to left field.

“I really thought that we came together as a team today, even though our hitting wasn’t there we were able to get it together.” Gorrell said. “Hopefully we will be able to pick it up from here and got some more wins under our belt.”

Athens Drive finished off the Patriots in the bottom of the fifth when a bases-loaded walk to Connor Gallimore drove in the winning run to complete the 10-run rule.

“I thought we did what we needed to do defensively and pitching wise. … They had a tough inning with some errors there, but if not for that, it’s a pretty good game,” Athens Drive coach Ryan Westbrook said. “It’s big to get that first conference win… to get any win is always big in this conference. “

Friendship (1-6, 1-6) hung tough for the first couple of innings, but a few errors in the bottom half of the third seemed to doom the young Patriots team.