Piedmont Baseball Aims for Second in Region

The Piedmont Academy baseball team needs one win in its final two region games to wrap up a No. 2 seed for the state playoffs.

Coach Danny Camp’s Diamond Cougars will host Westminster today and Nathanael Greene Monday to close out the regular season. Both games begin at 4:30 p.m.

Nathanael Greene will likely be the No. 1 seed but Piedmont is in prime position to take the runner-up spot from Region 1-AA, Camp said Wednesday morning.

The Cougars dropped a non-region contest to New Creation 8-2 Tuesday.
{{more}}
“We left too many runners on base,” Camp said. “We had chances early.”

Piedmont trailed 3-2 going into the sixth inning when the wheels fell off, Camp said.

Prior to Tuesday’s non-region contest, the Diamond Cougars split a pair of recent 1-AA games.

Piedmont fell to Strong Rock 2-0 on the road Monday despite the Cougars having five more hits than their opponent.

“This was a tough one to swallow,” Camp said. “They just had an inning where they pushed two across on a double. That was all they got. One hit scored both of their runs.”

Piedmont had opportunities in the first inning with runners on second and third with one out but could not score. In the top of the second, the Cougars had a runner on second with no outs but could not bring him home.

“We just couldn’t get them across,” Camp said. “They made some good defensive plays in the infield.”

Josh Stevenson pitched another “excellent game,” Camp said. The senior standout had eight strikeouts.

“We just couldn’t muster any offense,” the coach said. “We had leadoff runners on base in several innings.”

“Our pitching and defense are capable of carrying us,” Camp said. “Plus, we only had one batter strike out today.”

Last week Piedmont hammered Westminster 14-2 for its sixth region victory of the spring.

Stevenson earned the win as Piedmont jumped out to an early 5-0 lead and never gave its opponent a chance to be in the contest.

The Cougars had 14 runs on 13 hits.

Corbett Tucker was 3-for-4 with a home run, triple and five RBI. Blake Hammock was 2-for-2 with three RBI. Stevenson, Austin Collier and Cole Hamilton were both 2-for-3.

Freshman Daniel Leinweber also drove in three runs.

Piedmont is now 14-8 overall and 6-2 in region play.