Hartsville bumps Myrtle Beach baseball from playoffs

Sometimes you get the bull, sometimes the bull gets you.

That’s how Myrtle Beach coach Tim Christy describes the game of baseball. Unfortunately for Christy, the bull got the Seahawks on Wednesday and that bull was Hartsville.

Starter Toby Burchfield held Myrtle Beach to just one run and Hartsville scored two in the crucial fifth inning as the Red Foxes held off the Seahawks for a 3-1 victory to advance to the Class AAA Lower State finals.

“I think we’ve proven that we can play with anybody in the state of South Carolina,” Christy said. “You have a team that comes in that’s only been beaten by one team in the state and we gave them everything we wanted and if we make a few plays, we win this baseball game. I’m just so proud of our kids; they’re so full of fight and they fought until the end. What are you gonna say? Sometimes you get the bull and sometimes the bull gets you.”

Hartsville took advantage of an error at first base during the fifth inning, and Austin Morris scored on the play to tie it up 1-all. Then, Chandler Melton hit an RBI single – which proved to be the game-winner – to give the Red Foxes a 2-1 advantage.

Burchfield hit an RBI single for the final run of the game in the seventh inning to extend Hartsville’s lead to 3-1.

“We had the play at first base and you’ve got to make that play. It’s a fairly easy play to make and we just didn’t make the play,” Christy said of the error in the fifth inning. “In playoff baseball, we’ve continually told them is that you have to throw strikes and make plays. We threw strikes; we just didn’t make enough play. Just didn’t make quite enough plays.”

Myrtle Beach starter Praise Thorsen was part of the error at first base as he botched a throw, but pitched a quality game. Thorsen received the loss, but struck out six and allowed two runs (none earned) on five hits and two walks in six innings.

“I’ve said before that I’ve ran out of things to say about Praise Thorsen,” Christy said of his ace. “He comes out and pretty much dominates for six innings. He’s a great kid and he battles his tail off; we’re going to miss him. We’re going to miss him big time.”

After it was all done, Christy reminded his team of what they accomplished. Winning Region VII-AAA and the District VII playoffs were no small feats and Christy reminded his kids that.

“I told them how proud I was of them. They’re a champion [by] winning the region and the district; that’s a word nobody can ever take away from them,” he said. “When you’re a champion, you’re always going to be a champion. I’m just proud of the kids, they’ve worked hard and played hard; you can’t ask for anything more.”

Meanwhile, the Seahawks will lose eight seniors to graduation. But Christy knows he has such good young talent on his roster and isn’t too worried.

“In regards to how big of a hit that will be: we’ll miss them,” he said. “We’ll miss them terribly, they’re great kids, good players and I love them but we’ve got good, good young players in this program. So how big of a hit that’ll be, we’ll find out next spring but I’m already looking forward to it.”

Other baseball playoff action

▪ Bishop England 5, (at) Waccamaw 2 | The Warriors season came to an end with a loss to Bishop England in the Class AA Lower State playoffs

“We had a great season,” Waccamaw coach Jeff Gregory said. “We had 11 shutouts and seven one-run ballgames; we just couldn’t get it done tonight.”

This story was originally published May 13, 2015 at 10:33 PM with the headline "Hartsville bumps Myrtle Beach baseball from playoffs."