Waterford tops Tornadoes, 11-0
May 20—RACINE, Ohio — In all fairness, the Tornadoes had already won the title ... and they were about 48 hours away from starting work on another.
With the start of the Division IV district tournament looming for the Southern baseball team Saturday night, visiting Waterford made the most of a prime opportunity Thursday night during an 11-0 victory in the Tri-Valley Conference Hocking Division finale for both clubs at Star Mill Park.
The host Tornadoes (12-6, 10-2 TVC Hocking) used 15 different players in the 7-inning affair, and only two of those hitters saw three at-bats over the course of the contest.
Still, SHS managed to keep things scoreless through two full innings of work ... but then things started heating up for the Wildcats in the third as Heiss doubled and later scored on a groundout for a permanent 1-0 advantage.
WHS sent nine batters to the plate in the top of the fourth as part of a 6-run outburst, then the guests tacked on a run in both the fifth and sixth frames for a 9-0 cushion. Waterford added two more scores in the seventh to wrap up the 11-run outcome.
Southern won the first contest on April 29 by a 6-4 count at Waterford.
The Wildcats outhit the hosts by a 10-3 overall margin and also committed only one of the eight errors in the contest. WHS also stranded nine of the 11 runners left on base.
Kaiden Michael, Layne Reuter and Josiah Smith had the lone safeties for the Tornadoes, who face Lucasville Valley on Saturday night in a D-4 district semifinal matchup at Chillicothe VA Memorial Stadium at 7 p.m.
Cade Anderson took the loss after surrendering seven runs (two earned), three hits and two walks over 1.1 innings of relief while striking out three.
Zimmer got the win with seven scoreless innings of 3-hit baseball to go along with 11 strikeouts.
Huffman paced the Wildcats with three hits and three RBIs.
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Bryan Walters can be reached at 740-446-2342, ext. 2101.
