Socastee baseball rebounds with win over West Ashley

It was do-or-die and the Socastee baseball team took care of business Saturday.

The Braves pounded out a season-high 14 hits, and starter Dylan Thompson tossed five quality innings as Socastee cruised to a 12-2 win over West Ashley in six innings in the Class AAAA, District VIII playoffs.

“I haven’t been hitting real good so I worked on it,” said Buck Bacot, who went 3-for-4 with an RBI and run scored. “Everybody else did too because nobody has been hitting good but we really hit the ball today. Just credit to everybody for making adjustments and getting the job done.”

Socastee got out to a quick lead as it scored nine runs in the first three frames. Javelle Passley highlighted the three-run first inning with a two-RBI single and Thompson drove in a run on a fielder’s choice in the second inning as the Braves took a 4-2 lead. Then, Ryan Beale, Daniel Covert and Bacot each hit RBI singles in the five-run third inning as Socastee took a 9-2 advantage and never looked back.

Every Socastee starter reached base safely in the game and eight of nine batters got at least one hit.

“We did a great job of hitting our pitch instead of hitting the pitcher’s pitch,” Socastee coach Curtis Hudson said. “It’s been a long time since we had 14 hits. Lots of times we just go up there hacking and we put the ball in play; we don’t strike out but we don’t exactly hit the ball hard. Today we did a good job early in the game hitting pitches we wanted to hit and not ones they wanted us to hit and I thought that was a big difference in the game.”

The key Saturday? Attentiveness.

“I thought we focused and concentrated today and we don’t always do that and that’s my fault. I think they do a good job in the game and we don’t do a good job of focusing and concentrating in the pregame. I made sure today that they focused and concentrated from the time they got here to the time the game started and I think that was the biggest difference,” Hudson said. “It’s easy to focus and concentrate in the game but before the game sometimes they want to play around and today I’ll give myself credit, I made sure they paid attention to the task at hand and stayed on task.”

Thompson picked up the win as he allowed two runs on seven hits, two walks and also struck out five.

“Dylan did what he had to. We were able to get him out early and conserve his pitches,” Hudson said. “If we do make it to Wednesday, he should be able to come back for Game 2 if we make it that far.”

Bacot also tossed a perfect inning of relief, and Hudson expects to put him on the mound Monday as the Braves host the South Aiken-Ashley Ridge loser for a spot in the District VIII finals.

“I feel pretty good and pitching today helped,” Bacot said. “I pitched pretty good today and my arm has been feeling good and the defense has been playing well and that’s a good combination.”

The Braves fell to South Aiken 2-1 in their playoff opener, but Bacot feels good about his team’s chances should the teams meet again.

“We played good, they just played a little better; they got some timely hits when they needed to and we didn’t,” Bacot said. “But I feel like if we play them again and we get a couple of at-bats go our way, we can win.”

This story was originally published May 2, 2015 at 10:18 PM with the headline "Socastee baseball rebounds with win over West Ashley."