Palmetto wins Coastal Invitational
By Chris Sokoloski
csokoloski@gtowntimes.com
PAWLEYS ISLAND -- Palmetto High School beat Chesnee 9-2 last weekend to win the 2012 Coastal Invitational Baseball Tournament.
"It was a good tournament," said Waccamaw High School baseball coach Jeff Gregory, who organizes the event. "We had good crowds and tremendous community support."
Now in it sixth year, the tournament was once again the victim of bad weather. Due to the threat of rain on Saturday, six games were played on Friday, along with the home run derby. Only one game was played on Saturday.
Waccamaw went 1-2 in the tournament, beating Pelion 7-2 and losing to Palmetto 6-3 and Hanahan 9-5.
Kevin Kies led the Warriors against Pelion, going 2-for-3 with a run scored and two RBIs. Justin Colegrove scattered five hits over five and 2/3 innings to pick up the win. Jalen Simmons got the save.
"Our pitchers are obviously ahead of our hitters," Gregory said.
Waccamaw and Palmetto were tied 3-3 after six innings, but the Mustangs rallied for the win in the top of the seventh.
Luke Freeman 2-for-3 with a run scored for the Warriors. Simmons went 1-for-3 with an RBI.
Waccamaw also kept the game close against Hanahan, the No. 3 ranked team in Class AA, but gave up four runs in the seventh inning.
"We showed our youth by not being able to finish games," Gregory said.
Kies started and got behind quickly when the Hawks got three unearned runs in the first inning.
"Kies threw extremely well," Gregory said. "We didn't play well behind him."
Gregory replaced the junior after 95 pitches.
"It's too early in the season to go more than 95 pitches," Gregory said.
"We showed some people what we're about," Kies said. "We need to cut down on the mistakes and I think we could do a lot better going forward."
Simmons had two doubles and scored twice, Paxton Buckner had a double, two RBIs and scored once, and Colegrove had an RBI.
Waccamaw committed seven errors in the losses to Palmetto and Hanahan.
"I'm a little concerned after coming through this tournament about errors," Gregory said. "You can't make mistakes against the top teams in the state."
Gregory and his players said the tournament is an excellent way to evaluate where the team is.
"We're close. We can compete with the upper echelon teams," Gregory said. "It's in their hands. They've been taught well by the coaching staff, it's up to them to make the right decisions that affect this team."
"We didn't have all our players, but when we all get back together we should be pretty good," Simmons said. "Situational hitting needs to get better but other than that we look pretty good."
"I think we look promising and I think we're on a good road to success," Kies said.
"We look a lot better than we did from our earlier scrimmages," Curtis Lawing said. "We've made a lot of progress but there's a lot of things we still need to get better at."
Lawing, a sophomore starting his first year on the varsity squad, hit three home runs to win the home run derby on Friday night.
He is the second Warrior to win the Coastal Invitational home run derby. Zack Hagaman won it in 2008.
"It felt great beating all those seniors," Lawing said, "I was very nervous, but after I hit that first one I felt a lot more calm."
Gregory held a contest for his players to pick his derby representative.
"I wasn't even going to give him a chance because he was a rookie," Gregory said. "He kept saying 'coach let me give it a try.' "
After several Warriors failed to hit a home run, Gregory gave Lawing his shot, and he came through.
Around the tournament
Palmetto's Trey Hayes was named the tournament's most valuable player after leading the Mustangs to a 4-0 record.
Hayes had a .575 batting average, with six hits, four RBIs and four runs scored.
Along with the win over Chesnee in the championship game, Palmetto beat Pelion 2-0, Cheraw 10-0, and Broome 12-2.
The other tournament results were:
Chesnee beat Johnsonville 6-0 and Broome 12-6 and lost 3-1 to Hanahan; Broome beat Hanahan 3-2 and Johnsonville 8-2; Hanahan beat Johnsonville 3-1; and Pelion beat Cheraw 1-0.