By BY BRUCE HIXON – SPORTS EDITOR
Getting swept in the three-game series was tough enough. It was the way the host Wallace State-Dothan Governors capped off the three-game sweep that made it an even tougher pill for the Jefferson Davis Community College Warhawks baseball team to swallow.
JDCC, which lost the first game of the series Friday 9-1 and Saturday's first game 8-3, took a 4-2 lead into the bottom of the seventh inning in the series finale.
An RBI single by Jesse Edwards in the top of the third inning, RBI singles by Jeremy White and Ben Green in the fifth and a sacrifice fly RBI by Edwards in the sixth helped JDCC build the advantage.
Warhawks starting hurler Tim Horne retired the leadoff man, but surrendered a one-out single to Michael Precise. Horne got Ernesto Gonzalez to fly out for the second out, but a two-out walk to Andrew Starr kept the game alive. More importantly, it put the tying run on base.
A single by Brett Chamberlain brought in Precise to make it 4-3. An RBI single by Dennis Perez scored Starr to tie the game, but an error on the hit also allowed Chamberlain to score the winning run.
Saturday's second game put the Warhawks (7-8 in the Alabama College Community College Conference and 14-17 overall) at the halfway point of their division season.
The finale was by far the Warhawks' best chance to get a win.
Wallace State-Dothan pitcher Dave Mason threw a complete game two-hitter at JDCC in Friday's opener. Neither of the two hits, singles by Ryan Gray and Kyle Snedeker, factored into JDCC's lone run.
Starter Michael Maraldo took the loss for the Warhawks, as he was touched for seven runs in the first three and two-thirds innings.
Things were not a whole lot better in Saturday's opener. The Governors (15-3 in the ACCC and 22-12 overall) jumped out to a 3-0 in the bottom of the fist inning against Warhawks starting pitcher Harrison Szuch and never relinquished it.
JDCC was able to narrow the gap to 5-3 in the seventh inning on Steven Bingert's solo homerun and Matthew Stokes' RBI single, but Wallace State-Dothan got one of those runs back in the bottom half of the inning and two more in the eighth to pull away.
Jeremy White and Stokes both had a pair of hits to lead the Warhawks' hitting.
JDCC, which played a home doubleheader against Faulkner University Tuesday, begins another ACCC series Friday when it entertains Central Alabama for a nine-inning game that gets underway at 1 p.m. The teams will conclude the series Saturday with a 12 noon doubleheader.
Friday's game
JDCC 000 000 001 - 1 2 1
WSD 202 300 11X - 9 14 0
Saturday's game one
JDCC 010 000 200 - 3 7 2
WSD 300 101 12X - 8 10 1
Game two
JDCC 001 002 1 - 4 11 0
WS Dothan 000 200 3 - 5 12 0