FRANKFORT – Mitch Merica won a
pitchers’ battle with Jarrod Smith to help the North Montgomery Chargers notch
a 1-0, Sagamore Athletic Conference win over the Hot Dogs on Tuesday at Frankfort.
Merica struck out seven Hot
Dogs and walked none while allowing just seven hits and no runs through seven
innings of work.
“He threw a great game,” Charger
coach Matt Merica said. “He had command of all of his pitches, got ahead in the
count, kept the ball in the zone, and we played great defense behind him.”
Scoreless after five innings,
the Chargers got all the run production they would need when Justin Clary led
off with a single and then scored on Baylee Adams’ deep shot to left field.
Adams was caught in a run down and tagged out trying to stretch his hit into a
triple, but the Chargers were on the board and his RBI turned out to be the
game-winner.
“We are playing good baseball,”
Merica said. “I think that we have committed one error in the last seven games.
That has carried us. We are on an eight-game winning streak right now.”
For Frankfort, Smith struck out
three and walked none while allowing the one run and seven hits through seven
innings.
“You have to tip your hat to
Jarrod,” Merica said. “He was outstanding today. He gave us nothing to hit, but
we were able to get a couple base hits back-to-back, and one run was all we
needed tonight.”
With the win, the Chargers
improve to 11-2, 6-0 SAC.
“Every game is important and we
stress that to these guys all year,” Merica said. “There is no conference game
that is more important than the other, no matter who we are playing. Frankfort
is a real good team, especially when they have Jarrod on the hill. We were
focused, didn’t get down and got a run late to get the win.”