Devils top Midway 5-0

By BROWNIE ROSE

Roane Newspapers

>Midway and Harriman hooked up Thursday afternoon for the second and final game in the season series for 2008.

Harriman won the first game Tuesday 12-2 at Midway on the strength of four home runs. With all the homers on Tuesday no one really expected a pitchers duel Thursday, but it did happen as Harriman pulled out a 5-0 win with all five runs coming in the fifth and sixth innings.

Harriman improved to 4-1 with the win and 2-0 in District 3-A while Midway dropped to 1-3 overall and 0-2 in the district.

Midway’s Ryan Radcliffe and Harriman’s Nathan Smith hooked up in a great pitching duel for four innings.

Up until the fifth inning Radcliffe had limited the Blue Devils to just one hit, but Harriman finally rallied for five runs in the fifth and sixth innings. The highlight of the rally was a sixth inning home run from Cody Morton.

Radcliffe ended the game giving up five hits and five runs. He walked one and had one strikeout.

Smith pitched six innings of shutout ball giving up four hits with one walk and one hit batter. He struck out five.

Christian Pryor finished off the Green Waves in the seventh by striking out two of the three batters he faced.

Houston Pass had the only Harriman hit in the first four innings, a single in the third.

In the fifth, Morton doubled to begin the inning. After an out, Smith reached on an error to deep center field that scored Morton. Pass drew a walk then Smith scored when Cody Pierce grounded into a fielder’s choice.

Harriman scored their final three runs in the sixth to go up 5-0.

A.J. Johnson singled and stole second to begin the inning then Pryor singled to drive in Johnson. Morton stepped in and drove a Radcliffe pitch to deep left and out of the park to score the final two runs.

Midway did have their chances in the first six innings putting runners on base each inning.

Jonathan Bullard reached on an error in the first. Josh Manning singled in the second. Jack Henderson singled in the third and Chris Barry drew a walk. Dallas McMurray singled in the fourth while Eric Stansbury singled in the fifth and Barry was hit by a pitch in the sixth.

The Green Waves stranded each runner except for Stansbury’s single in the fifth that was wiped out by a double play.

Midway visits Grace Christian Monday and host Grace next Tuesday.

Harriman takes a few days off for spring break, but will travel to Murfreesboro next Friday for a four-game set in a tournament there. Harriman will play two games Friday and two more games Saturday afternoon.