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Coming into focus: McGuffey baseball tough to beat

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Southmoreland was hoping for a much better result in Tuesday night’s Class 3A Section 4 baseball game against McGuffey than the one it got Monday afternoon. The score was a little less ugly than Monday’s 15-2 final was, but the result was the same.

For McGuffey, the beat went on with a 7-2 win.

Although McGuffey coach George Linck was happy to pick up a seventh-straight win, he didn’t feel his team’s focus was where it needed to be for all seven innings.

“We just need to be focused,” he said. “Every pitch, every out, every inning. I’m not quite sure that we were that focused today, but we’re working on that. It’s something that we will address.”

It didn’t take McGuffey long to pick up where it left off from Monday. The Highlanders scored three runs in the bottom of the first inning on three singles, aided by an error. Wnning pitcher Austin Beattie and Austin Hall each had RBI singles, and Beattie came around to score on an error by second baseman David Billheimer.

The Highlanders (5-0, 8-1) added on in the the second inning, aided greatly by mistakes from the Southmoreland (3-2, 3-3) defense, which ended the night with five errors. After Owen King got the first two batters, Brock Wallace ended up on third because of a three-base throwing error by third baseman Kadin Keefer. Wallace came around to score one batter later on another throwing error, this one by shortstop Ben Zimmerman.

Jake Orr then doubled home Beattie to make it 5-0. The Highlanders added one more run in their half of the fifth, and another in the sixth.

Beattie ran into trouble in the top of the sixth, giving up two runs and finding himself in a bases-loaded situation. But he struck out Keefer to get out of the inning with his team up 6-2.

For Southmoreland coach Al Govern, the difference was simple.

“Too many errors,” he said. “Errors cost us the game. (McGuffey) only had three earned runs. Errors cost us the game.”

McGuffey will look to keep it up Thursday at California in a non-section game.

Beattie got the win for McGuffey, throwing a complete game.

“He has a great slider,” Linck said. “He has a great fastball. His ability to mix up pitches is what really makes him effective.”

He allowed just two runs on four hits, walking four and striking out eight. For the Scotties, Mason Basinger took the loss, going all six innings, giving up all seven runs (four earned) on eight hits.

McGuffey hasn’t lost since dropping its opener to Ringgold and is working its way to becoming a consistently respectable baseball school.

“We’re just trying to develop an overall program from our varsity to our middle school,” he said.

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