HOSCHTON — Jerad Curry had a double and a homer and drove in five runs to lead Mill Creek to a 10-3 win over Walton on Friday in the first game of the best-of-three opening round of the Class AAAAA playoffs.
“We need Jerad to be good, and he picked a good game to do that,” Mill Creek coach Doug Jones said. “We’ve had a lot of different heroes all year, and this was his game.”
Curry, a catcher who has signed with Chipola (Fla.) Junior College, was 2-for-3 at the plate. He knocked in the first run with an infield grounder in the first inning that scored leadoff hitter Devin Bonin. He doubled in Chandler Boyd in the third inning, then scored on Connor Kasten’s double.
Curry launched a two-run homer in the fifth inning to knock in Boyd and came close to a grand slam in the sixth inning, hitting a fly ball that was caught against the 350-foot sign in right-center field for a sacrifice fly.
Mill Creek (21-6) got a solid pitching performance from Chip Fleming, who pitched a complete game, allowing eight hits and striking out four.
“It wasn’t his best outing, but we’ll take it,” Jones said. “Chip will battle you, and he made some good defensive plays out there, too.”
Walton showed some spunk by fighting back for single runs in the fourth, fifth and sixth innings that cut Mill Creek’s lead to 6-3. But the Hawks put aside any threat of a Walton comeback by scoring four times in the bottom of the sixth, a rally that included a squeeze bunt by second baseman Mitch Loving and a steal of home by Bonin, who was 3-for-4.
The daring base running was part of the Mill Creek recipe for success. They also stole five bases in the win.
“We’ve got good team speed, and we just try to play to our strength,” Jones said. “Once we got up, we decided to keep the pressure on and keep the hammer down.”
Walton was led on offense by center fielder Josh Merrigan, who was 2-for-3. His solo home run in the fourth inning got the Raiders on the board. Reid Hanner tripled and scored on David Levy’s ground ball in the fifth inning. Merrigan scored again in the sixth on Drew Adler’s sacrifice fly to center field.
Stephen Wrenn was the starting and losing pitcher for Walton.
“It was nice to win the first one,” Jones said. “They tried to come back and make some noise, and I’m proud of the way our kids came back.”
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