The Greene County Rams were 7-4 Class 3A District 15 baseball winners over ADM in Harlan on Friday night. The victory clinched a winning season for Coach Mark Sawhill’s team and advanced the Rams to the District 15 title game on Monday night at 7 p.m. vs. the number one ranked Cyclones in Harlan. Carroll fell to Harlan 10-0 by the 10-run rule in five innings in the second game of Friday’s twin bill.
The Rams out hit the Tigers 10-4 and never trailed. Greene County was the visiting team scored two runs in the first, one in the second and two in the third to build a 5-0 lead. ADM cut it to 5-3 after three but the Rams made it 6-3 in the fifth before ADM scored once in the bottom of the frame for a 6-4 score. A run in the top of the sixth closed out the scoring.
Winning pitcher Ben Wilkins improved to 5-3 by throwing the first four innings. Dylan Fouch pitched the fifth and one batter into the sixth. Austin Delp pitched the last two frames and picked up the save. Wilkins gave up the first three runs and Fouch allowed one run. Wilkins gave up two hits, walked one batter (intentionally), hit two with pitches and recorded six strikeouts, including the last four batters he faced. Fouch gave up one hit, and two walks (one intentional), plus he hit two batters. Delp allowed a hit, a walk, and he struck one batter out.
Eight different Greene County players had at least one hit. Nick Breon doubled for the lone extra base hit for the Rams. Tom Gannon and Austin Delp singled twice, while Trey Tucker, Chase Stoline, Wilkins, Wade Adcock, and Ben Bravard all had one single. Delp drove in two runs and Adcock one.
Coach Sawhill watched his team play errorless ball, which included an 8-3-2 fly ball double play to end the sixth inning. Stoline caught the ball in shallow center field with a runner on third and one out. His catch was out number two and he then relayed the ball to first baseman Adcock, who threw to Gannon at the plate, who tagged the runner, who hesitated on his way to home plate. In addition, Stoline had an outstanding running catch in deep right center, and Tucker made a good running catch toward the left field foul line to end the game.
The win in the opening round of the postseason was the first for the Rams since 2013 when they beat Creston in Creston, and only the second postseason win this decade. The winning season is the second in three years.
The Rams (14-12) and Harlan (32-2) can be heard on KG98 and streamed on www.raccoonvalleyradio.com with coverage starting at 6:30 p.m. Monday’s winner advances to the Substate 8 final on July 19 vs. either Denison-Schleswig (16-20) or Creston (14-19), also in Harlan.