The two Lowcountry powers battled for a third time this season on Saturday afternoon, settling the Region 7-AAA championship. The first two games went extra innings, with each team winning on the other’s home field. Saturday’s game had just as much drama, for a while.
Junior left-fielder Matt Lobeck had three RBI singles, including one to break a 1-1 tie in the bottom of the fifth inning, to pace the Bishops in a 6-1 win at Father Kelly Field. Bishop England, the Class AAA defending state champions, improved to 23-1 on the season.
“Glad to get it done and move on to the next step,” Bishop England coach Mike Darnell said. “It sort of felt like a playoff game today. It’s as competitive as can be when we get together. This game forced us to bring a high level of intensity. We know each other so well. It simply was going to be competitive to the end, and we knew that.”
The matchup pitted two of the state’s top left-handed junior pitchers in Hanahan’s Charlie Toman and Bishop England’s Geoffrey Gilbert. Both pitched into the fifth inning before
exiting. Gilbert fanned eight and allowed four hits while Toman allowed three runs with six strikeouts.
Hanahan threatened in the first but left two runners on base with no score. Bishop England took a 1-0 lead in the third on Lobeck’s first RBI single, scoring Leo Albano.
The Hawks threatened again off Gilbert in the fourth, getting runners on the corners with one out but failed to score.
Hanahan tied the game in the fifth on Cooper Dawson’s RBI single to left, but the Bishops answered with two runs in the bottom half.
Lobeck’s single broke the 1-1 tie, and Gilbert later drove in a run with a bunt single up the first base line. Dawson finished the day with three hits. Hanahan left nine runners on base.
The Bishops blew it open with a three-spot in the sixth, getting an RBI double from Jacob Moore, another run-scoring single by Lobeck and an RBI groundout by Gilbert.
“I didn’t think we pitched great today, but offensively we did some good things, enough of them, to beat a quality team,” Darnell said.
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