Region showdown this week for Bulldogs

The ECI Baseball team has three games on the schedule this week. Two of which will most likely determine who will win the region three championship this season.

The 13-4 Bulldogs will play a home and away 2 game series with 11-4 Screven Co. The Gamecocks hold a one game lead in the region at 8-0 while ECI is currently in second with a 9-1 region record.

They hosted Screven Tuesday (yesterday) at Joe Harvey and will travel to Sylvania on Friday to complete the week.

On Thursday, Bleckley Co. will visit Twin City in an unusual mid-season non-region game. The Bulldogs improved their region record last week sweeping McIntosh Co. and Savannah High School to pick up four region wins.

The Bulldogs bats remained hot last week in Darien in the first game against McIntosh, leaving the coastal town with 14 hits and a 12-2 win. Tied 2-2 after three innings, the Bulldogs plated 10 runs in the final 3 innings while shutting down the Bucs for their first region win of the week. The Bulldogs had 6 batters in double figure hits during the game. Davis Johnson and Tuff Boddiford led with 3 hits each. Getting two hits in Darien were Bryson Thompson, Jackson Kennedy, Ab Marsh and Kanyon Thompson. Kennedy held the Bucs to just one hit with 5 strikeouts in his 6 innings of work. Jud Underwood closed out the game in the seventh giving up a hit with 3 strikeouts.

It was a different game when the Buccaneers came to town on Friday with ECI holding on 5-4 to sweep McIntosh in the two-game series. The Bulldogs jumped to an early 4-0 lead in the second and expanded their lead in the fifth to take what looked like a comfortable 5-0 score into the sixth inning.

The baseball grew a couple of eyeballs in the top of the sixth inning for the Buccaneers finding every gap just out of reach on the infield. McIntosh ended the sixth with 6 singles to score 4 runs with ECI holding on to a 5-4 lead. The Bulldogs called on their closer, Tuff Boddiford to stop the bleeding. The junior fireball induced 3 strikeouts and a groundout against the 4 batters he faced in the sixth and seventh inning for an important region win. Gabe Lee and James Parker led the Bulldogs with two hits each. Four other ECI batters ended the day with a hit each. James Parker started the game scattering 6 hits with seven strikeouts. Jud Underwood pitched part of the sixth inning giving up a hit with one strikeout. Boddiford closed the final one and one third innings, retiring all four batters with 3 strikeouts.

The Bulldogs hosted Savannah High School on Wednesday in a double header. The Blue Jackets, known in the low country as a school with a few basketball state championships, are just not competitive in baseball having scored just 10 runs this season. They showed up with good attitudes for their situation, but the Bulldogs took both games in three innings. They won the first game 15-0 and ended the night with an 18-0 win.

The home game and away games against Screven Co. are scheduled for 5:30 p.m. with the home game against Bleckley Co. to begin at 6 p.m.