North Myrtle Beach softball gets key win over St. James

James Graves wasn’t going out of his way to praise his team after a significant victory.

The North Myrtle Beach coach twice used the word “average” to his Chiefs players during his postgame speech, trying to find motivation to finish the job.

The 6-3 win over St. James may not have been pretty, but it more than did the trick. North Myrtle Beach stayed in second place in a region that is going to have a frenetic finish in the final four days of the regular season.

Each of the top three teams had four region contests scheduled – equating to 40 percent of their region games – and the Chiefs struck first.

“I feel about good about the win and where we’re situated right now,” Graves said. “But I don’t feel particularly good about how we played. We can’t make mistakes like we made and consistently win. They’ll hear me fuss about that a little bit.”

Despite three errors, North Myrtle Beach ran its lead up to 5-0 in the first five and a half innings before St. James got on the board. The biggest blow was a three-run third in which eight batters went to the plate.

The top three in North Myrtle Beach’s lineup contributed five of the six total runs, with center fielder and lead-off hitter Julia Cole scoring three times.

Meanwhile, the Sharks struggled against pitcher Taylor Hansis, not picking up their first hit until the fourth. They tacked on three runs in the final two frames, but North Myrtle Beach had done enough damage with its 11 hits that it mattered little.

“We did what we had to do to get some runs,” Graves said. “We hit the ball well to get those.”

The Sharks’ inability to get something going until late proved to be the difference. But it’s only the beginning for coach Adam Jones’ team, as well.

St. James will likely finish among the top three as long as it wins at least one more game this week, be it against Wilson (Tuesday), Georgetown (Wednesday) or Lake City on Friday.

“Even though we didn’t win, we ended up on a high note. Hopefully that will carry over to the rest of the week,” Jones said. “Unless we do something really stupid, we’ll stay in third. We’re not going to be able to finish second or first – that’s out of the picture. We’re going to try to finish third, get into a decent district bracket and try to carry over some momentum.”

Georgetown, North Myrtle Beach, St. James and Myrtle Beach had all clinched top-four spots prior to the start of the week. The most likely change in that order will be at the top. Standing in the Chiefs’ way is Georgetown, currently 6-0 in region play. If they both win Tuesday and the Bulldogs defeat St. James on Wednesday, the game between Georgetown and North Myrtle on Thursday will likely have the biggest impact on the region title and No. 1 seed.

“Georgetown’s good,” Cole said. “But we’re coming after them. … They’re going to have that long bus ride. It’s going to be a long day for them. I’m ready for them.”

This story was originally published April 20, 2015 at 9:05 PM with the headline "North Myrtle Beach softball gets key win over St. James."