The Tallassee baseball team used a small ball approach to perfection on Thursday night.
Tallassee knocked off in-county opponent Wetumpka, 6-5, in the cold and rain and improved to 6-2 on the season in the process.
The Tigers had three bunt singles in the game, scored two runs on RBI groundouts and scored two runs on a wild pitch and scored its final run on a ground ball turned error in the fifth inning.
“I’m very proud of them,” Tallassee coach John Goodman said. “We pitched well, got some timely hits, moved some runners over and did some things well. I didn’t think we played that well as a whole with a lot of errors in the field, but I’m very proud of them for getting the win.”
Tallassee fell behind in the top of the first inning when Wetumpka’s Jacob Smith singled in Mason Fuller with a ground ball to left field.
Wetumpka’s lead was short lived, however, as Tallassee led off the second inning with a single by Brody Wisener. Cash Gough then hit a bunt single to third base to put two on with no outs, and Bry Hatchcock then bunted into an error to load the bases with one out.
Brady Mason, the team’s pitcher, then came through in the clutch and gave Tallassee the lead with a two-run single.
Hathcock then scored on a wild pitch, and Thomas Lemmond drove pinch runner Mason Battles in on a groundout to put Tallassee up, 4-1.
:That’s just us doing what we have to do to win the game,” Goodman said. “It’s one of those things where it’s just the way we play. We have to move runners over and get them into scoring position and then hopefully get a big hit. We did tonight.”
With a three-run lead, Mason was able to hold off Wetumpka enough for the win. The team’s ace went six full innings on 100 pitches. He allowed just one earned run on six hits and struck out eight Indians.
He left the game with a 6-4 lead in the top of the seventh inning. The only damage he allowed after the first inning single was a two-run home run by Smith and a RBI double by Logan Fawcett.
Both runs that scored on the home run were unearned due to a two-out error.
“Brady was great,” Goodman said. “He’s doing exactly what we need him to do. We’ve got him on a long rotation and he gets his rest in and we keep him sharp. He’s our go-to guy and pitched a gem of a game for us.”
Mason exited the game in the top of the seventh and Chase Webster came in for the save. Webster started his outing with back-to-back strikeouts before the top of Wetumpka’s lineup came up to bat.
On the second pitch to Wetumpka leadoff Mason Fuller, he got a ground out but it was booted for an error, Tallassee’s fourth of the game. Following a wild pitch, Fuller came around to score on a RBI single to cut the lead to 6-5.
“That’s not us,” Goodman said. “We don’t make that mistake. These kids are still learning and that was just a little bit of pressure.”
Two pitches later, the game ended when Fawcett hit a ground ball to the right side of the infield and it bounced off the Wetumpka base runner.
“We needed this really badly, especially after Tuesday night’s loss,” Goodman said. “We needed to get back in there and the guys needed to see that they could do it. They needed to feel it and enjoy it.”
Dalton Middleton, Tallassee Tribune