BYRDS – As the top of the sixth inning rolled around, St. George Post 105 relief pitcher Evan Mizzell looked up at the scoreboard from his seat outside the team’s dugout in disbelief.

“Holy crap,” Mizzell said. “Look at the scoreboard.”

He was referring to the freaky scroll lit up just beyond the Woodland High School baseball fence, three straight sixes, St. George 6, Inning 6, Dalzell-Shaw 6. While there were no dark forces at work in Friday night’s near four-hour game, winless Dalzell did give St. George (4-6) a “devil” of a time before Post 105 pulled away in the later innings for a 13-8 win.

“We weren’t too happy with the effort tonight,” St. George coach Nick Pinckney said. “But, we will get it going in the right direction.”

Early on, it looked like the game would be a one-sided affair. After Dalzell-Shaw went up 1-0 on a bunt, infield single by Mike McMillan that scored Jeremiah Freeman in the top of the second, St. George came back in the bottom of the third to take a 3-1 lead thanks to an RBI single from Martin Connelly, who was 3-for-5 with two RBIs, that scored Jon Tweed, a scored run by Connelly on a passed ball and an RBI single by David Pinckney that scored Tyler Metts.

That lead continued to grow in the bottom of the fourth when Jeremy Jones, who was 2-for-5, homered to make it 4-1. Jon Tweed then scored on a passed ball to make it 5-1, and Holden Crosby reached on an error that allowed Connelly to score, making it 6-1.

But, as quickly as St. George took the lead, Dalzell-Shaw came back, scoring five runs, tying the game 6-6, in a weird inning in which St. George starter Tyler Looper and reliever Jordan Ardis combined to strike out five Dalzell-Shaw batters, two of which reached base after dropped third strikes.

Dalzell-Shaw took the lead again in the top of the sixth when Frankie Wampler came home on a passed ball to make it 7-6. St. George then brought in its third pitcher of the night, Connelly, and he managed to hold Dalzell-Shaw to just one run over the final three innings for the win.

Meanwhile, his St. George teammates broke out for seven more runs against a young Dalzell-Shaw that was, in the end, just to thin.

“Our shortcoming is pitching,” Dalzell-Shaw head coach Donnie Daniel said. “We are just trying to piece together some pitching to get through the games. We have been playing really good ball for about seven innings. When you play three or four games per week you can really run through pitching.”

St. George is scheduled to take on Manning-Santee at 7:30 tonight at Woodland High School. 

-- T&D Sports Editor Brian Linder can be reached by e-mail at blinder@timesanddemocrat.com or by phone at 803-533-5553. Visit his blog, Welcome to Linderland, at www.thetandd.com.

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