Smoky Bears Walk-Off Kingston For 6-5 Victory

The Smoky Bears entered the bottom of the 7th inning trailing 5-4, down to their final three outs to try and make something happen against the visiting Kingston Yellowjackets. Senior Jacob Greene made sure that the home Smoky Bear fans, were going to leave happy, delivering the game winning hit. "Kingston outplayed us, they should have probably won the game, but they didn't", remarked Sevier County coach Casey Taylor.

Sevier County sent junior Landen Hurst to the mound, to start the evening on an absolutely beautiful Friday in Sevier County. Hurst however, would be hit on the arm by a hard line drive back up the middle by the leadoff batter for Kingston and would be forced to exit the game.

"It affects it tremendously (speaking on their gameplan for the night), tough break for us, tough break for him. We were expecting to see a good little outing, not expecting him to go a complete game or anything but thought he would get 3 or 4 good innings.”

The Smoky Bears turned to freshman Benny Greene, following the injury to Hurst. Greene retired the first three batters he would face to get the Smoky Bears out of the inning unscathed.

Sevier County would get their first base runner of the night after Greene worked a 7 pitch at-bat into a walk, two batters later, Jacob Greene would walk to give the Smoky Bears runners on first and second with two outs in the inning. Pinch runner Kaden Roach would steal second, he would however be thrown out attempting to steal third to end the threat.

Kingston opened with a single from their leadoff batter in the second, followed by a walk, a hit batter loaded the bases for the Yellowjackets with one out. Kingston scored on a fielder's choice to shortstop Hayden Parrish who made the flip over to 2nd baseman Christopher Pettis but the relay to first would be late and allowed the Kingston run to score, to make it 1-0 Yellowjackets after 1.5 innings of play.

Zane Miller led-off the bottom of the second for Sevier County and delivered a game-tying homerun over the right field wall to make it 1-1. The Smoky Bears then recorded 2 ground outs, followed by a fly out and Kingston would escape the inning without allowing further damage.

B. Greene worked a 1,2,3 third for Sevier County on a pair of fly balls to center, and a routine ground ball to shortstop Parrish who made the throw across the diamond to retire the final Yellowjackets batter for the inning. The Smoky Bears followed suit and were also retired in order on a strikeout and a pair of groundouts to the left side of the infield. The Smoky Bears & Yellowjackets were still tied at 1 after three innings of play.

Sevier County worked around a single with two outs from Kingston before getting the third out of the inning on a fly ball to right fielder Wyatt Maples, to keep the Yellowjackets in check and the score tied.

The Smoky Bears took the lead in the bottom of the fourth inning after Jacob Greene reached on an error by the shortstop, Maples was called on as a pinch runner and stole second base on the second pitch of the at bat from Miller, who once again delivered on a single back up the middle into centerfield to give Sevier County the 2-1 lead heading into the fifth.

The leadoff batter in the fifth inning for Kingston would reach on a single, before the Smoky Bears made the call to the bullpen, as they would bring in freshman Bode Warren in relief of Greene. The first batter Warren faced would reach on a single to center, the next Kingston batter would reach via an error on a sacrifice, that would load the bases for Kingston.

The Smoky Bears punched the first out of the inning on an infield fly to shortstop Parrish, before a single to center allowed two Kingston runs to score after an error by centerfielder Britt St Clair to make it 3-2 Yellowjackets, with runners on 2nd and 3rd. The next Kingston batter would rope a line drive down the left field line, that allowed both runners to score and suddenly it was 5-2 Kingston heading into the bottom of the fifth.

Sevier County was once again be in business as Hunter Hansen singled on a hard grounder back up the box into center, Parrish followed suit and hit a hard grounder into left field for a base hit, and he was followed by Warren who provided a bloop single from down the right field line to load the bases for the Smoky Bears.

Junior catcher James Hooker walked to plate Hansen, and make the score 5-3 Kingston. Jacob Greene came to the plate and delivered a sacrifice fly to deep center to score Parrish before, Miller would fly out to left field to end the inning with the Smoky Bears trailing 5-4 after five innings.

Warren worked a perfect sixth inning inducing three quick outs via a hard line drive that was snagged by senior Braden Huffaker at third, a groundout to Parrish at shortstop and a pop fly, once again to Parrish who would make the easy play.

The Yellowjackets worked their own 1,2,3 inning and head to their half of the 7th inning leading the Smoky Bears 5-4. Warren once again pitched to contact and worked another 1,2,3 inning and sent Sevier County into the final half inning trailing 1, looking to scratch across at least one run to extend the game.

The inning kicked off with Hansen, who struck out on what many fans considered a high pitch, but the umpire called the third strike to sit Hansen with the Smoky Bears down to their final two outs. Senior Parrish would work a 6 pitch walk to give Sevier County life with one out.

Warren struck out swinging and left the Smoky Bears with only one out left to work with. Hooker drew a 6 pitch walk. Parrish who was already in motion with the full count and two outs would score, after the catcher made the throw to second unexpectedly and Kingston was unable to make the play before Parrish would reach home. Hooker would advance to second on the throw home from the centerfielder, giving the Smoky Bears a runner in scoring position with two outs.

Jacob Greene would come to the plate and deliver what would be the game winning single on a hard line drive to left that scored Hooker, giving Sevier County the 6-5 victory over Kingston. His teammates would mob Greene as he exited the field at shortstop in celebration.

"It was an exciting series, Hansen had a really good at bat, a tough at bat. Whenever you don't get that, a lot of teams kind of cave there. So for Parrish to come back and compete and kind of grind that at bat out, I thought was good.", Taylor said.

"What a play, just what an absolute play. There is so much trust in that play, when Parrish got to third base 98% of players are going to pull up short at third and the trust between him & Devante is so powerful."

The Smoky Bears will host Unicoi at Cliff Davis Field on the campus of Sevier County High School, on Saturday at 3:00 PM. The win moves the Smoky Bears record to 6-4 on the year.

The Sevier County Smoky Bears mob teammate Jacob Greene, following his walk-off hit that gave them the 6-5 win on Friday evening against Kingston.