Apollo kicked off the 3rd Region tournament in fashion as the reigning champions had a huge 23-1 blowout win over Grayson County. The Eagles held Grayson to just 3 hits for the whole game while they racked up 18 hits and 21 RBIs as a team.
The Eagles proved they are the team to beat this year with this standout-performance. They will move on to the semifinals and play Muhlenberg County at 5:30 p.m. today in a rematch of last year’s championship game.
Sam Holder opened the scoring with the first RBI of the game, hitting a ground ball to right field to run in Grayson Smith and move Ross Milburn over to third base. After Holder escaped a pickoff attempt and successfully stole second, Easton Blandford grounded out while scoring Milburn in the process for a 2-0 lead. Grant Lanham led the defense on the mound in shutting down Grayson quickly in the second.
Brock Burger’s bunt in the bottom of the inning moved Ty Lillpop into scoring position at third while putting Lillpop at first. A wild pitch allowed Lillpop to score the first of the Eagles’ 4 runs in the inning. Lanham was then walked to fill the bases up before Smith hit an RBI single to left field to run in both Lane Skinner from third and Burger from second. Lanham advanced to third amidst the chaos of trying to throw out the scoring runners, and Holder once again hit an RBI by hitting a sacrifice fly to bring Lanham home. AHS held a comfortable 6-0 lead going into the third inning.
The Eagles didn’t let up as they scored three straight runs across the next three batters. Michael Chaney hit an RBI single to run in Will Strode, Lillpop once again scored from third on a wild pitch and finally Lanham grounded straight to pitcher to allow Skinner to cross home plate. Smith got back on first from a line drive single to put runners on first and third. Milburn then hit a deep fly ball to center field for a triple, bringing in both Lanham and Smith while moving himself to third. Holder was walked to reload first and third with runners on. Easton Blandford was thrown out at first after a dropped third strike, but this allowed Holder to score from third before the inning came to a close at 12-0.
The huge lead didn’t stop Apollo from continuing to run up the score as they scored two more runs in the fourth inning off a line drive by Lanham. They closed out the game with a final 9-run performance in the top of the fifth. Strode started things off by hitting an RBI single to run in Holder from second, and Lillpop moved Strode into scoring position with a line drive single. Gunnar Hendricks moved things along with another RBI single to bring Strode home and put Lillpop on third. Immediately after, Skinner hit a ground ball to the shortstop to allow Lillpop to cross home plate and put the score at 17-1.
Lanham was hit by a pitch to load up bases while still having just one out. An error at first base kept Smith’s single alive and allowed William Wilkins to score. Milburn continued to pull off big hits for the Eagles as his double out into center field scored both Skinner and Ryleigh Logan. Holder was walked and Blandford was hit by a pitch, loading the bases yet again and setting up the final 2 runs of the game. Lillpop hit a deep fly ball to center field for a double that scored both Milburn and Holder. Hendricks then grounded out at first to finally close out the inning. Apollo didn’t slack on defense despite their big game at the plate as it was a quick three up and three down in the bottom of the fifth. This closed out the game for a massive 23-1 scoreline.
With a start to a tournament such as this, Apollo head coach Brandn Dennis said that he couldn’t have been happier with how the team was locked in from start to finish.
“I couldn’t be happier with our approach,” he said. “The guys were locked in from the first AB. They had very few lapses over the course of 5 innings.”
As the Eagles move on to their semifinal final game against Muhlenberg today at 5:30 p.m., Dennis said that the team will continue with their defense-first mindset, and that they will have to stay extremely sharp defensively for the whole game against the Mustangs.
