South Johnston baseball belts two homers in win at rival Triton

Thomas Carpenter smashed a three-run home run in the top of the first and Grant Millay hit a three-run shot of his own in the second as South Johnston raced past Triton, 15-4, in six innings in Two Rivers 3A Conference baseball Tuesday night.

The win was the third straight for the Trojans (5-7, 3-0), while Triton fell to 7-3 overall and 1-2 in league play.

Triton struggled on defense, as six errors led to 12 unearned runs for the visitors.

“You can’t give a team like that any extra outs,” Triton coach Joey Miriello said. “When we’ve struggled this year, it’s been because defensively we’ve kicked the ball around a little bit. … I think we let our emotions get the best of us early. We left a couple of pitches up due to frustration and they capitalized on it.”

Sauyer Roberts picked up the win for the Trojans, allowing two runs on two hits while striking out three in his four innings of work. Aaron Hedgepth took the loss, allowing seven unearned runs and fanning two batters in 1.2 innings.

“A couple of things went our way early,” South Johnston coach Aaron Parnell said. “We got some big base hits and scored some early runs. … We’ve been working on trying to drive the ball hard. Both times (on the home runs) guys were in scoring position and we were trying to hit the ball in the outfield we can score on. It happens to be they run into it, squared it up about as good as they could.”

South Johnston, which led 7-0 after the first two innings, got plenty of offense. In addition to the homers, Zach McLamb was 2-for-4 with a double and two RBI and Roberts was 3-for-4 with two runs driven in.

Carpenter’s blast, however, set the tone.

“I just went up there and swung the bat like my coach told me to do,” he said. “And it happened to work in our favor early in the game.”

Jacob Maness had a two-run double for the Hawks, while Adam Capps and Hedgepeth also drove in runs for the home team.

South Johnston visits Corinth Holders on Thursday while Triton will travel to Smithfield-Selma on Friday.

This story was originally published March 29, 2017 at 12:59 AM with the headline "South Johnston baseball belts two homers in win at rival Triton."