The Warren County Pioneer Middle School baseball team returned to action Tuesday night after its two previous games were postponed due to inclement weather.
The Pioneers traveled to Franklin County to take on the Franklin South Middle School Trojans. The Pioneers looked as if they never missed a beat, dominating the Trojans on their home field 9-0, thanks to a huge five-run inning in the sixth. The Pioneers were led by third baseman Westen Wilson, who went 3-for-4 with three runs scored and a RBI.
Braden Bottoms got it done on the mound for the Pioneers, improving his record to 3-0 in an impressive performance, going five innings, allowing only three hits and striking out four Trojans.
Jack Keele got the bats going for the Pioneers in the top of the second when he laced a single to right field, that was followed by a single to left field by Westen Wilson, and the Pioneers had two men on base with two outs. Carter Mansfield came up with two men aboard and hit a double down the left-field line, scoring both Keele and Wyatt Wilson to give the Pioneers the lead on the road, 2-0.
After the Trojans still couldn’t get anything going in the bottom of the inning, the Pioneers added another run to their lead in the top of the third, thanks to an RBI single from Bottoms scoring Omari Harris. The lead was now 3-0 in favor of the Pioneers going into the bottom of the third. The Trojans were sat down in order in the bottom half of the third, for the third consecutive inning, as Bottoms was dealing on the mound, as the score remained 3-0 heading into the fourth.
Neither team scored in the fourth or fifth innings, but the Pioneers had an answer for that in the sixth. Keele started the inning with a walk that was followed by an RBI single from Westen Wilson, and a RBI from Trace Adcock to give the Pioneers the 5-0 advantage.
Later in the top half of inning, the Pioneers tacked on three more runs courtesy of RBI singles from Wyatt Wilson and Will Rivers, who scored on a hit batter by the Trojans to add another run to give the Pioneers an 8-0 lead heading into the bottom half of the sixth. Much like most of the night the Trojans still failed to get anything going in the run column in the bottom of the sixth and continued to struggle heading into the seventh.
The Pioneers added one more run in the top half of the seventh, and Keele shut down the Trojans in the bottom of the inning to win the game on the road 9-0, and improve to 5-0 on the season. Everyone in the lineup contributed a hit for the Pioneers.
The Pioneers will be back in action today at home, when they go up against the Dekalb-West Bulldogs. First pitch is set for 5 p.m.