A home run on the opening at-bat for McCracken County jump started the Mustangs to a 12-3 win over Graves County on Friday night.
It was junior shortstop Kendrick Dunning who sent a missile 375 feet over center field and gave the Mustangs an early 1-0 lead.
Head Coach Zach Hobbs said the exciting start to the game was a great momentum builder from the plate, but didn’t guarantee a win.
“It makes things easier when Kendrick leads the game off with a home run,” Hobbs said. “It’s obviously a boost for your confidence but you still have to go out and approach it.”
The Mustangs did just that, approached the ball, finding another four runs in the second inning. The first two were base hit RBI from junior center fielder Caden Kern and senior left fielder Braden Truitt. Both players would make their way home on a laser beam to center field from junior first baseman Will Fox. The Mustangs left the second inning up 5-0.
“It was just one of those days for us,” Hobbs said. “Some days you’re in 1-0 dogfights, baseball is a weird game.”
As weird as the game was, Graves would make an effort to come back in the bottom of the third inning. Senior right fielder Coby Mullins sent one to left field to bring in the Eagle’s first run of the night. Senior third baseman Hayden Thompson would secure the second run with a ground out RBI. The Eagles cut the Mustang’s lead to three.
Hobbs said that inning showed where the team needs to improve, but they haven’t had much time to practice lately.
“We have to clean up defensively a little bit,” Hobbs said. “We made some errors that we haven’t been making this year. I think that was a result of not playing and we didn’t get to work on our defensive stuff earlier because of the weather.”
But despite the short-lived lapse in defense, the Mustangs would get right back to dominating at the plate. Fox hit another RBI in the fourth to bring Dunning home, Kern tripled in the fifth with bases loaded to bring in another three runs, and Truitt would follow that up with a base hit RBI. The Mustangs were up 10-2 after the fifth inning.
“We’ve really been working on shortening up our approach,” Hobbs said. “We found some holes and we hit some balls hard.”
The Mustangs scored another pair of runs in the 6th and would go on to win 12-3 with a team total of 18 hits. Fox led the team with four hits, Truitt had three, and Dunning, Kern and Thompson had two each. Ten different players for the Mustangs had at least one hit which Hobbs loved to see.
“I think we simplified things at the plate,” Hobbs said. “Hopefully the guys will see that result and build on this.”
The Mustangs will get the opportunity to build on this game starting May 5, against Hopkinsville. This will take the Mustangs into a stretch of six games in one week.
As for Graves County, they get right back to work on Saturday as they take on Graves County at 11 a.m.
MCCRACKEN COUNTY 12, GRAVES COUNTY 3
MCHS 1 4 0 1 4 2 0 — 12 18 3
GCHS 0 0 2 0 0 1 0 — 3 6 3
2B: MC — K. Mahan, W. Fox; GC — C. Hayden, C. Hoon
3B: MC — C. Kern, K. Dunning
HR: MC — K. Dunning
TB: MC — K. Dunning 7, W. Fox 5, C. Kern 4, B. Truitt 3, B. Thompson 2, K. MAhan 2, G. Dugan 1, L. Gagnon 1, L. Grace 1, O. Aldridge 1; GC — C. Hayden 2, C. Toon 2, C. Woodward 2, C. Mullins 1, M. Ivey 1
HBP: MC — C. Kern; GC — C. Baldwin
CS: GC — C. Woodward
E: MC — B. Casebier 2, K. Dunning; GC — C. Woodward, H. Thompson, W. Thomas
RECORDS: MCCRACKEN COUNTY (17-6); GRAVES COUNTY (14-8)