Ridings, Harris lift Polk Middle baseball to dramatic 2-1 win in regular season finale

Great pitching, a game-winning home run and incredible drama – Polk County Middle School couldn’t have ended its regular season Wednesday on a higher note.

Brandon Ridings didn’t allow a hit for seven innings and Tyler Harris drilled a solo home run in the top of the ninth to give the Wolverines a 2-1 win at Bethel Middle School.

The win lifted Polk County (6-8) into the fifth seed from the Eastern Division for the Blue Ridge Middle School Conference postseason tournament. The Wolverines travel to Canton Middle on Thursday for its tourney opener. Polk County split its two regular season meetings with the Bears.

Ridings pitched eight innings in the win, relying on what head coach John Ruth called a ‘sick’ changeup and fastball to allow just one hit, a leadoff single in the eighth, while striking out five. Avery Edwards pitched a scoreless ninth to earn the save.

“Brandon pitched eight innings of incredible baseball,” Ruth said. “The only reason I pulled him out was that I usually only let pitchers have seven innings of work. That’s all I allow. He had such a low pitch count after seven innings I went ahead and let him have the eighth. He only had 83 pitches.

“This was probably the most exciting game I’ve ever been associated with at Polk County.”

Bethel took a 1-0 lead in the second inning, turning a walk, sacrifice bunt, passed ball and two-out double steal into a run. The Wolverines answered in the sixth as Elijah Sutton singled with one out, stole second and third and then scored on Wilson Edwards’ single.

The game remained tied until the top of the ninth, when Harris launched a one-out home run to center.

“I didn’t really doubt it. I knew it was gone when it left his bat,” Ruth said.

Bethel took advantage of a walk and error to get two runners on in the bottom of the ninth, but with the tying run on third, Avery Edwards struck out a Bethel batter to end the game.

Harris had two hits to lead Polk Middle, which also got hits from Wilson Edwards, Ridings and Sutton.