Myrtle Beach baseball prevails over North Myrtle beach in error-ridden game; takes region

Tim Christy found out as his team was coming to bat in the bottom of the second that it had already clinched the Region VII-AAA championship.

Courtesy of a St. James’ road loss at Lake City, Myrtle Beach and its coach knew the title and the accompanying No. 1 playoff seed was theirs. At the very least, the Seahawks owned the tie-breaker should Myrtle Beach lose and fall back into a two-way tie.

Despite getting dragged into an ugly game, the Seahawks made sure they won their first title in six years outright. Myrtle Beach beat rival North Myrtle Beach 10-2 in a game that saw 10 total errors and most of the runs scored come unearned.

Regardless, the title is Myrtle Beach’s.

“I said early on to this group of kids that we were built for the long haul,” Christy said. “It wasn’t going to be how we started. It was going to be how we finished. We won games when we needed to.”

The Seahawks had the best week of any team in the region. They went 2-0 while St. James lost a pair of games after taking over the region lead with a 1-0 victory last Friday.

The week included a first-time starter (Michael Calamari) pitching a gem Tuesday at Georgetown and a good amount of offense Friday against the Chiefs. The fact that it came with some assistance didn’t bother Christy.

Myrtle Beach scored three runs in the second, five in the fifth and two more in the sixth. North Myrtle Beach had at least one error in all three of those innings.

The Chiefs’ only rebuttal was an error-assisted frame of its own. In the top of the fifth, Brian Alderson’s team scored its two runs, taking advantage of a pair of Seahawk defensive miscues.

Pretty baseball? Not exactly.

But Myrtle Beach got the job done.

“Finding out that St. James lost to Lake City, I don’t want to say it pushed us to be more lazy, but it definitely did affect us,” third baseman Drayton Arnold said. “I think knowing that kind of hurt us. So I’m not really worried about it.”

The game ended up meaning little for either team in terms of the region standings. Georgetown’s win over Wilson – which also went final earlier in the night – locked North Myrtle Beach into the fourth spot.

The Chiefs will hit the road next week trying to mimic the fourth-seed upset they had in 2013 over No. 1 Hartsville.

It was the Seahawks’ first region baseball title since 2009. To do so, Myrtle Beach had to stave off a St. James team that won four straight between 2010 and 2013. The Seahawks lost to the Sharks last Friday, only to see St. James drop two games this week.

It opened the door for Myrtle Beach.

As for Myrtle Beach, it will play Aiken, the No. 4 team out of Region V-AAA at home on Friday.

“That’s our job as a coaching staff to get them ready mentally to play,” Christy said. “It’s a new season. It’s great for our kids that we won a region championship. And that’s gone.

“Now’s a time when you have to show up every day with laser focus ready to prepare for the next step.”

This story was originally published April 24, 2015 at 11:24 PM with the headline "Myrtle Beach baseball prevails over North Myrtle beach in error-ridden game; takes region."