Wags walk past Jacksonville in showdown of ONSL unbeatens

Shallotte hosted Jacksonville on Friday night in an early-season showdown of unbeaten teams in Old North State League collegiate baseball play.

The Shallywags only had three hits but took advantage of 11 walks and four hit batters to improve to 3-0 as Jacksonville slipped to 4-1 overall and 1-1 in the Coastal Division.

Left-hander A.J. Skifres gave the Wags a solid start with West Brunswick graduate Gabe Abbott and Jason Maldonado protecting a lead over the final innings.

Nikita Sutherland had a run-scoring triple for Shallotte in the third.

The Shallywags took a 2-0 lead in the first after Ryan Seagroves was hit by a pitch and Payton Hankins walked. Jude Morgan had a 2-run single after a sacrifice bunt by Angel Garrido moved the runners to second and third.

Drawing walks in a 3-run second for the hosts were Landon Everhart, Sutherland, Jacob Koenig, Garrido and Morgan. Ryan Davis and Seagroves were hit by pitches.

Everhart walked and stole second before Sutherland tripled to right for a 7-1 lead.

“Obviously, them being unbeaten, we knew that they were going to have a good ball club, said Shallotte coach James Rice. “That’s what we expected. We got an early lead. We took advantage of some mistakes early on from them on the pitching side. If they’re going to give us free bases we have to be able to take advantage of those mistakes.”

The hosts scored four times in the seventh after Trey Pierce led off with an infield hit. Cody Crafton was hit by a pitch. Errors on bunts by Everhart and Zak Stear brought in three runs before a run-scoring sacrifice bunt by Sutherland.

“Credit to their bullpen, they came in and did a job,” Rice said. “They shut us down for quite a bit. In the seventh, we scored four more runs to give us a little breathing room. And again, that’s taking advantage of mistakes and it was playing small ball. Today small ball won for us, and that’s not going to be the case every game, but small ball is a huge part of what we did today.

“We put down three consecutive bunts, scoring runs, making them make plays. And that’s the type of coach I am. I’m going to put pressure on them and we did what we needed to do.”

Shallywags pitchers did what they needed to do.

“A.J. Skriffis, a great start,” Rice said. “He gave up one run in the third inning on a hit batter and we talked about it. It ended up coming around.

“That’s just something that we need to really focus in on is making sure we get the lead-outs. But other than that, he pounded the strike zone. He stayed aggressive on the mound, which is what I was looking for.

‘The guys that came in after him, Gabe Abbott, just attacking the strike zone and then Jason Maldonado after his first batter settled down and closed us out there in the ninth, which was exactly what we were looking for.”

Abbott was working from the Mike Alderson Field mound that he pitched on in high school. He talked about following up on Scifres’ effort.

“Just watching A.J. go out there and dominate, did what he did,” Abbott said. “It adds fuel to the fire and we just keep it going. It makes you want to pitch so much more, seeing the guys give you all they’ve got. So that’s what I’m doing. … Shut them down. Get ahead early and then stay ahead.”

Abbott is enjoying playing for his town with some new teammates.

“I love the guys,” he said. “Meeting some new people. Awesome. It’s awesome.”

The Wags played a new lineup from a season-opening 9-8 win over Hope Mills.

“We have 19 hitters right now, and being early on in the season, we want to make sure that all these guys are getting at-bats,” Rice said. “That goes with competitiveness in the dugout as well.

“It’s great to compete in between the lines against the rival team, but keeping that competitiveness up within our own dugout, keeps these guys hungry, brings them to the field every day. So later on in the season, we have a good clue of who the best is going to be out there when we need them.”