Canton Middle School staggered Polk County Middle School early in Monday’s baseball playoff opener.
Staggered, but in no way slowed.
The Wolverines bounced back from Canton’s three-run first inning, piling up runs at a regular rate en route to a 10-4 win in the first round of the Blue Ridge Middle School Conference postseason tournament at Polk County Recreation Complex.
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The win sends Polk County (8-6) into Wednesday’s semifinal, where the Wolverines will trek to Macon Middle School (13-1) to face the top seed in the tourney.
On a warm and muggy afternoon, the Bears got a two-run homer and another first-inning run to grab the early advantage. But Polk County starter Avery Edwards shut down the Bears from then on, finally giving way to Grayson Jones with one out in the sixth inning. The Wolverines holding a 7-4 lead at that point, Jones stopped a Canton rally, and the Wolverines add three more runs in the bottom of the sixth before the game reached its time limit.
“We want to peak at the right time,” said Polk County Middle head coach Billy Alm. “We scored 10 runs today. We haven’t scored more than six runs in a game all season.
“We got good pitching, we hit the ball and we played good defense. We cut down on our mistakes and we capitalized on theirs.”
The Wolverines began to rally in the second, scoring two runs on an RBI double by Elijah Sutton and a Jones RBI single. Polk then took the lead for good in the fourth, scoring three times for a 5-3 edge. Evan Rimer singled before Nick Capozzi crushed a double to deep left-center. After Clark Phipps was hit by a pitch, Brandon Ridings doubled home two runs.
The Wolverines added two more runs in the fifth and then three in the sixth to seal the win.
Jones had three hits and Ridings, Sutton and Rimer each had two hits to pace Polk Middle’s offense.
“Avery pitched well,” Alm said. “With it being so hot, he looked gassed there at the end, so we brought in a fresh arm.
“He did an exceptional job to face adversity in the first inning and battle back.”
