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Battlin’ Bulldogs survive, 4-3

24 May 2007 — The never-say-die Bulldogs battled back at East Columbus Friday night.

They fell behind, 3-0 early, and then shut out the Gators for six innings, rallying for two runs in the top of the seventh to stave off elimination and then getting a homer to win it in the tenth from an unexpected batter.

East Columbus was coming off a nine inning win over Rosewood. Princeton Coach Bruce Proctor was expecting a similar performance from the Gator pitcher, tough to hit, but a bit wild and was confident his patient hitters could get some walks and would get to him when he started pitching from behind.

“That left-hander must have pitched the game of his life against us.” The EC pitcher retired 14 Bulldog hitters with strikeouts and only walked three.

Meanwhile Chris Hinton, who had a strong outing on the mound in the first round playoff game the week before, ran into trouble early, surrendering a couple of runs in the second inning. Coach Proctor brought in Dustin Pate in the third. He gave up a run in the third inning, but settled down the rest of the way.

In the top of the seventh, Daniel Gerrell had one of his two hits as the Bulldogs rallied to tie.

Coach Proctor couldn’t remember Pate working on the mound as long all season. In the bottom of the ninth, after retiring the first two Gator batters, he gave up two straight walks and Coach Proctor had seen enough. He summoned Ryan Daughtry to the mound.

Daughtry, the regular shortstop who has been in a bit of a slump of late, went to the mound and calmly retired the first batter he faced on a strikeout to end the inning.

He was then the first man up in the top of the tenth, and he took a 1-1 pitch deep over the fence to put Princeton ahead for good, 4-3.

Daughtry hit a Gator hitter in the bottom of the inning, but retired the other three EC batters he faced, getting another strikeout.

Daughtry and Gerrell were the only two Princeton hitters to get a couple of hits, and Andrew Cobb and Justin McLamb were the only other Dawgs to even get a hit in the game.

The win in the third round of the playoffs was Princeton’s 20th of the season.

Princeton was to host Topsail Tuesday night.

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