Southwest's baseball team hosted the No. 24-ranked Gulf Coast Bulldogs on Wednesday in a doubleheader that saw the Bears win 12-2 and 5-0.
Brookhaven Academy product Matt Newman started on the mound for the Bears in Game One. Newman pitched five innings with five strikeouts and only one run allowed, picking up the win for SMCC.
Easton Boyte pitched the final two innings with a strikeout and no hits allowed.
Southwest took command of the contest early and only allowed four hits throughout Game One.
After five innings, the Bears led 5-1 over Gulf Coast.
The first run of the game came on a Tanner Moore single that scored Drew Swan. The next on a Jonathan Miller single that again scored Swan.
Another Moore single scored Miller to put Southwest up 3-1.
In the fifth, the Bears put up two more runs on singles by Robbie Hokamp and Sam Tumminello.
Leading 5-2, the Bears posted a whopping seven runs in the bottom of the sixth inning to go up 12-2 over the Bulldogs.
Southwest amassed the seven runs through a combination of singles, walks and sacrifice flies in an inning that saw Tristain Haynes and Moore get two at-bats each.
Easton Boyte put down three straight batters in the top of the seventh to secure the 12-2 run-rule victory for the Bears.
Moore and Tumminello led the team with three hits each. JD Hidalgo, Domiano (2B) and Swan each had two hits. Miller, Haynes,and Hokamp all recorded a hit.
Miller, Tumminello, Hokamp and Moore each had two RBIs. Hayes Loper, Hidalgo and Swan each had one.
Rhyson Carroway started at pitcher in Game Two for Southwest.
Carroway pitched 3.2 innings with two strikeouts and no runs allowed, picking up the win for the Bears.
Nik Carney came in for the next 2.1 innings and picked up four strikeouts with no runs allowed.
North Pike's Dom Smith pitched the final inning, putting down three straight batters with two strikeouts to secure the 5-0 win.
Southwest put up three runs in the second and two runs in the third to go up 5-0, then kept Gulf Coast scoreless the rest of the game.
All three runs in the second inning came on a bases-clearing double by Moore.
In the next inning, Domiano and Hokamp scored on a dropped third strike to Miller that turned into an error by the catcher.
Those two runs gave the Bears a 5-0 edge over the Bulldogs that they’d hold for the rest of the game.
Moore and Loper led the team with two hits each, while Hokamp also had a hit.
Moore recorded three RBIs and Miller added one.
Haynes also stole a base in the contest.
“We knew that it was a big day for us, and we showed up and played really well," head coach Jack Edmonson said. "I thought we handled our emotions well and competed at a high level in all facets of the game."
The Bears (26-16, 10-8) have the weekend off before traveling to Decatur on Tuesday to play East Central in a doubleheader.
