Hastings Pitches Knights past South Paulding Spartans

Gil struck out 4 in 5 2/3 for the win and singled and scored a run.

Gil Hastings pitched a gem on Saturday in his longest outing of the season as the Knights opened the
USSSA NIT in Dallas with 7-4 win over the South Paulding Spartans. Gil went 5 2/3 innings with 4 strikeouts and only allowed 1 earned run. Jackson Tysinger led the offense going 2 for 4 with a double, 2 RBI's and a run scored.

The Knights took the lead in the 2nd after Austin Hansell led off with a single. George Krivsky ripped a triple to the fence in RCF that scored Austin all the way from first. Luke Martin followed up with a line drive single to left that brought home George and gave the Knights a 2-0 lead. Jackson led off the 3rd with a single and stole 2nd and 3rd allowing him to score on a 2 out single by Austin to push the lead to 3-0.




George Krivsky blasted an RBI Triple.

Luke led off the 4th with a double and went to 3rd on a single by Austin Schubert and Presley Field walked to load the bases. On an 0-2 count, Hunter Williamson choked up and put the ball in play that scored Luke and pushed Presley and Schubie to 2nd and 3rd as Hunter was thrown out at 1st. After a pop out, Jackson smashed a 2 out, 2 run double to left field. The Knights lead was now 6-0. Gil singled in the 5th, stole 2nd and scored on an error to score the final Knights run and give the Knights a 7-0 lead.

At that point, the boys started taking the win for granted and a triple and 3 straight errors suddenly closed the gap to 7-4. With time expired in the 6th, a walk, a single and another error loaded the bases for the Spartans with one out. Schubie came on to try to save it for the Knights. On his fourth pitch, the Spartans cleanup hitter hit a sky high flyball between 2nd and SS. The ump immediately called the Infield Fly rule and the batter was out. The ball dropped causing the runner on first to break for second even though he didn't have to. Hunter picked up the ball and threw to Presley at first who made the tag as the runner bowled over Presley at 1B for a wild double play to end the game.

It was a beautiful weekend at Mt. Tabor Park in Dallas and, as always, the Marietta Knights brought the prettiest fan club