Fairborn’s James Jessee (7) goes for the baseball as a Springboro runner slides into base during baseball action at Athletes in Action’s Grady’s Field on Monday evening.
XENIA — Once the Springboro Panthers finally found their bats against Fairborn starting pitcher Brad Hall, they never lost them again.
‘Boro’s offense caught fire over the final four innings, leading the Panthers to a runaway 14-5 victory over Fairborn on Monday night at Athletes in Action’s Grady’s Field in Xenia.
The two teams combined for 24 hits in the ballgame: 15 from the Panthers (10-5) and nine from the Hawks (7-7, 1-3).
“Looking back, I think there were seven infield hits,” said Fairborn head coach Rob Smith. “When you’ve got to throw the baseball right down the middle, that’s going to happen. Brad wasn’t getting the outside corner, and when you can sit back and know where the pitch is coming, it’s a little easier to hit the ball.”
It was Springboro head coach Mark Pelfrey’s 300th win as a head coach.
“It’s nice,” Pelfrey said. “We had a chance Saturday but we fell a little short. This just means I’ve been around a long time.”
Springboro’s Adam Feeley got the win on the mound. He went five innings, giving up seven hits while striking out four and walking two. John Monnig pitched the final two innings, giving up two hits — including a solo home run from Bronson Marlett in the sixth — and struck out two.
Hall threw three scoreless innings to start the game before Springboro started finding the gaps. Trailing 4-3, the Panthers broke open the scoring with a four-run fifth to take a 7-4 lead. Fairborn never caught up.
“[Hall] did a nice job, and I thought our pitcher did a nice job of keeping us in the game,” Pelfrey said. “[Hall] started to get tired, and that’s when we were able to get to him.”
Did they ever. The Panthers collected 12 hits against Hall: Alec Graham had an RBI and two singles, Taylor Terrell had a ground rule double and three RBI, Collin Maher had an RBI and two base hits, Kyle King had two RBI doubles to go along with a base hit, and Ian Huss, Scott White, Alec Graham and Monnig had RBI singles.
James Jessee had a double and two singles to lead the Fairborn hitting; Jason Moorman had a pair of singles and Alex Johnson, Zac Gillespie, Ben Woolfe each contributed singles. A.J. Johnson also had a sacrifice fly. Three Fairborn runs scored on wild pitches, as well as an error in response to a wild pitch.
Both teams committed three errors defensively.
“We went three games without an error, and tonight we only had a couple,” Smith said. “Once we shore up our defense, we have two or three nice starting pitchers to do some damage in the tournament.”
Fairborn beat Stebbins twice over the weekend, 12-2, in both games.
In the first game, the Hawks quickly took a 6-0 lead and ran away with it. Nick Stephens got the victory on the mound.
In the second game, Marlett led the cause at the plate with two triples, both in the second inning. Jaycen Newsome was the winning pitcher, giving up four hits while striking out four.
“It was a pretty good day,” Smith said. “We had one error all day. We moved some kids around on defense, and it made a big difference.”
