KINGSPORT — The Sullivan Central baseball team is officially out of mulligans. The next loss will be its last, for all time.
The Cougars dropped a 12-2 mercy-rule decision to Sullivan South in first-round play of the District 1-AA double-elimination tournament Thursday, painting themselves into one final corner.
Just months from combining with South and Sullivan North to form West Ridge High School, Central (5-19) is as close as it cares to get to writing its baseball obituary.
“That’s what I just told the guys,” veteran Central coach Clay Colley said after the loss. “A lot of the guys will be playing to extend their careers, whether it be seniors or whether it be a junior or a sophomore who may or may not make the team against better competition at West Ridge.
“A lot of guys will be fighting for an extension of their careers.”
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The seventh-seeded Cougars, with Logan Bowers and Carson Tate leading off with singles, looked quite capable early against second-seeded South (18-6), leaping to a 2-0 edge with their first at-bat. Clay Wampler and Jacob Bombailey had the RBIs for Central.
But that was all the Cougars could muster against Cody Pugh, a senior right-hander who covered all six innings for the Rebels, allowing five hits and striking out three.
“He threw strikes and I don’t think he walked anybody,” South coach Anthony Richardson said. “We figured if we came out and threw strikes that we could score some runs.”
South blitzed Central with 17 base hits, four by Sean Reed and three each by Brody Ratliff and Issac Haynie. Haynie drove in three runs, Reed two.
Pugh also had two RBIs. Marshall Buchanan had two hits and scored twice, while Drew Hoover and Will Harris each had an RBI.
But despite the offensive attack of the Rebels, Central perhaps could have stayed in the game had it been able to make a couple of seemingly routine plays in the outfield.
On one occasion, with the score at 2-2, a charging outfielder had a two-out fly ball fall behind him, leading directly to a decisive five-run bottom of the fourth for South.
“We get out of that inning 2-2 like we should have then it’s a different ballgame,” Colley said.
The Rebels would close out the Cougars with a six-run sixth inning against Central’s bullpen.
“The final score doesn’t reflect how well Hunter (Stanley) pitched tonight and it doesn’t reflect how well our approaches were at the plate,” Colley said. “What it does reflect is how poorly we played defensively.”
The tournament now moves to a single site in Elizabethton, with South facing the winner Unicoi County and Central meeting Happy Valley.