By Lonnie Turner
The year in the Dixie Youth Baseball season (that wasn’t) was pretty exciting in some local play that involved the towns of Dillon, Latta, Lake View, and Mullins.
Regular season play was cut to only six weeks with the country at a stand still brought on by the Coronavirus Pandemic, but a post-season tournament began two weeks ago in Mullins involving Latta, Lake View and Dillon from the Dillon Kiwanis League and other teams from the Pee Dee Area, including Mullins, Conway, and Marion. Rain and scheduling problems resulted in the Championship Game between Latta and Dillon being moved to the Kiwanis facility Dillon on Friday of last week.
Dillon entered the game with one loss, a 7-2 decision to Latta earlier in the week while Latta, with no losses, was designated the home team.
After the two teams sat out a short delay, due to lightning and a little rain, the fans who stuck around after the rain, witnessed one of the most exciting games in recent years. In a seesaw battle that featured a home run by Dillon’s Avery Sherman, the teams went into the final inning tied at 2-2. Both starting pitchers, Dillon’s Sherman and Latta’s Bryan Berry had to leave the mound because of the 85 pitch count rule. Latta reliever Mason Weatherford allowed a hit by Zay Robertson, but settled down to get the next two Dillon batters on strikes.
The Dillon starter, Avery Sherman, struck out the first batter that he faced in the bottom of the inning, but hit J.P. Bley with a pitch and walked Ryan Hucks to end his stint on the mound.
With only one out, Fisher Richardson was issued an intentional walk to load the bases to set up a possible force play at home. Preston Brown worked Dillon reliever Williamson to a 3-2 count and singled sharply to right field to drive in the winning run.