By Lonnie Turner

The Dillon Family Dental Giants won the second half outright in the Kiwanis Dixie Youth Baseball Major League by beating the Dillon Internal Medicine Hurricanes, 14-4, in their last game of the season. The Giants (7-1) in the second half of the split season needed a win to earn the right to play the Feed & Farm Rangers, winners of the first half, in a best of three championship series, which began Thursday evening. Game two will start on Friday at 6 and the “if” game is scheduled to begin 30 minutes after completion of the first game.

The Giants sent thirteen batters to the plate in the first inning and scored nine runs; they added five more in the second before the Hurricanes could rally for all four of their runs in the fourth inning.

No one batter for either team had more than one base hit, but Dawson Perritt hit an RBI triple in the five-run second inning for the Giants. Chandler Matthews led off the second with a double and in the first, Dai-Dai Blakely hit a bases loaded double to clear the bases. The only other extra base hit for the Giants was a double by Landarian Johnson in the big first. Quentin Hunt drove in a pair of runs with a single and others to hit safely were Nick Evans, single, RBI; Noah Carter, single; and Yank Hodge, single, RBI.

The Hurricanes put together four hits and two Giant errors to score four runs in the fourth inning. Keith Rippy had a two-base hit and Cooper Lane drove in a run with a single. Josh Brown had a base hit and scored on a wild pitch and Brandon Bethea hit a two-out single for the ‘Canes.

In order to complete the regular season in two nights, the coaching staff of the Hurricanes agreed to play two games on Tuesday. The second game was a 19-4 blowout by the second place Dillon Meat Center Reds. The bright spot for the Hurricanes was scoring four runs in the bottom half of the first inning to take a 4-2 lead, but the Reds scored 12 runs in the second before an out was made and tallied five more in the third.

Gage Hunt hit a towering two-run homer in the second inning and doubled in the third for the Reds. The leading hitter for the winners was Malachi Bember with three hits in three plate appearances, and Barnes Causey joined Jared Ivey with two hits each. Other Reds with base hits were Collin Hamilton, Chase Dudney, Austin Coward, and Andrew Chestnut. The leading hitter for the Canes was Cooper Lane with a pair of singles. Trent McNeill added a two-run single and Jared Darmon had a base hit.

The Feed & Farm Rangers ended the regular Dixie Youth Baseball Major League season on a winning note with an 8-4 win over the Physicians Healthcare Yankees in Tuesday evening’s first of three games.

Getting his first start of the season on the mound, Jackson Stone scattered six hits and struck out 10 on the way to the victory. Tristian Brigman and Trent Johnson teamed up with their bats to give Stone all the runs they needed to get the win. Brigman doubled and singled, scoring both times on hits by Johnson, and John Rourke drove in Jon Michael Davis with a screaming line drive to the fence in the fourth to give the Rangers a 5-1 lead. Probably the only bad pitch from Stone was the one in the bottom of the fourth when Amari Huggins hit one out of the park with a teammate on base to pull within two runs at 5-3.

In the fifth, the Rangers scored three more runs when Stone reached base on an error and was followed with back to back singles by Quamez Graves and Davis. Jordan Mew was hit by a pitch and scored the third run when Kody McDowell grounded out to the first baseman. The Yankees battled back in the bottom of the final inning with a walk and hits by BoBo McKinnon and Huggins. With two on and two out, Stone struck out the last batter he faced to end the game.

Photos by Johnnie Daniels/THE DILLON HERALD. Click the images below to view at full size!