Published: May 05, 2008 11:26 pm            

Greenup doesn’t budge

WESTWOOD — Greenup County shut out Fairview 7-0 Monday night to snap the Eagles’ seven-game win streak and extend their own to nine straight.

“We’ve won nine in a row and we just need to keep this win streak going as long as possible,” Greenup County coach Greg Logan said. “We’re looking to get ourselves in position for the district tournament.”

The Musketeers had been off since Wednesday, taking a break for prom weekend, but it didn’t take long for them to get back in the swing of things.

After two scoreless innings, Greenup County’s lead-off hitter Eric Craft sent a two-run shot over the right-center fence, scoring Drew Scaggs, who opened the inning with a stand-up double.

“We didn’t come out hitting the ball like I thought,” Logan said. “We knew we would be a little bit rusty but (Fairview’s) Matt Thompson, with his good control, velocity and curve ball, was pretty tough on us tonight, so we were glad to put a few runs on the board with the home run.”

However, that didn’t ignite a rally much like the last matchup between the two teams on April 9 when the Musketeers took a 16-5 win in five innings.

“Just a couple of base-running moves and a couple of ‘at-em’ balls and it could’ve been a different ball game,” Fairview coach Rick Lambert said. “We didn’t play that bad. We played a lot better than we did the first time.”

The Eagles managed just three hits in the game, all off starting pitcher Dakota Greenslate, and had three of five stranded runners in scoring position, but just couldn’t drive in any runs.

“We’re a good hitting team, we just didn’t show it tonight,” Lambert said. “Good pitching’s going to out-do good hitting any day. This is going to make us better down the road, getting to see that good, quality pitching.”

Greenslate threw five innings to get the win for Greenup County. He struck out eight batters without issuing a walk. Tyler Hieneman pitched two hitless innings in relief, striking out two and walking one.

“Dakota was definitely in control and that was probably his second-best game of the year,” Logan said. “His arm’s getting stronger and he threw a gem for us tonight.”

Thompson took the loss for Fairview, throwing five innings and giving up five earned runs off seven hits. He walked one and struck out two.

“Matt Thompson pitched an outstanding game, too,” Lambert said. “Just a couple of bad locations on his pitches cost him a couple of smacks, but he did a great job.”

The Musketeers got plenty of run support in the remaining innings. Greenslate had an RBI single in the fourth. In the fifth, Billy Logan hit a sacrifice fly to score a run and James Madden followed with an RBI ground-out.

In the top of the seventh, Zach Stringfellow walked and later scored on an error. L.T. Rice’s RBI double scored the final run.

Craft was 3-for-4 with two RBI to lead the Musketeers’ offense. Zack Reed was 2-for-3 and scored a run.

Greenup improved to 23-6 on the year with seven games left on the schedule.

The Musketeers travel to Lawrence County (17-6) today for a 6:30 p.m. game. Greenup County’s looking to avenge a 5-2 opening-day loss to the Bulldogs.

“We’ve got the rust knocked off and now we’ve got to get busy,” Logan said

Fairview slipped to 9-7 and hosts East Carter Thursday.



GREENUP CO. 002 120 2 — 7 9 2

FAIRVIEW 000 000 0 — 0 3 1

W — Greenslate, L — Thompson. 2B: Rice (GC), Scaggs (GC), Thompson (F). HR: Craft (GC).

        

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