With four shutouts this summer, the Conyers' pitching staff has been nothing short of magnificent, and they continued to look almost invincible on Tuesday. Kelvan Diaz started the first game and worked the complete five innings while striking out three, walking one, and giving up only two Loganville hits. In the second game, Brandon Crumbley, making his first start of the season, pitched a one hitter while striking out seven batters over 5 1/3 innings of work. David Lockwood took it the rest of the way, pitching a strong 1 2/3 innings to close the game and secure the win.
"We've made it very clear that we are building our team on pitching and defense," said Conyers' coach Eddie Bagwell. "We expect our starters to give us good starts every time they go out there, and so far they've delivered."
Bagwell said he also liked what he saw from his closer Lockwood.
"David [Lockwood] has developed into our closer," he said. "He's the guy we want to close out all of our ball games with, especially tight games."
As good as Conyers' pitching was, their offense wasn't too shabby either. In the first game Loganville could put up little resistance, as they got pounded by Conyers' power line up. Catcher Chunk Smith led the charge, going 2-for-3 with a double, a triple, and four RBIs.
"He's [Smith] the hottest hitter on the team right now," said Bagwell.
Cameron Gibson hit a perfect 3-for-3 with two doubles and two RBIs. Gibson also used his speed to run down deep fly balls in the outfield, robbing Loganville of multiple hits. "Cameron [Gibson] is a young guy -- a rising junior, but he plays like he's in college," Bagwell said. "He's a very good ball player, but besides that he's also a great kid." Crumbley helped the cause by hitting a double and knocking in two more runs, while Brandon Thomas and Travis Tarleton also contributed with one RBI apiece.
The closest Loganville ever got to scoring was in the second inning when, with the help from two Conyers' errors, they had men on first and second base. But a double play turned up the middle spoiled Loganville's best chance to score.
In the bottom of the fifth inning, Conyers scored five runs, including a RBI- ground rule double by Crumbley, which pushed Conyers' lead to 10-0 and evoked the mercy rule.
The second game started off a little slow for Conyers as it didn't get a run or even a hit, until the third inning. Nick Matteen hit a single and then stole second before Thomas sent him home with blast to deep center field. Then, after the next batter lined out, Gibson stepped up to the plate and smacked one into the woods behind the left field fence, making the score 3-0. Matteen scored another run in the fifth inning off a double down the third base line by Nick Woodward. Then in the bottom of the sixth, with Tarleton and Logan Singleton on base, Alcovy's Taylor Jackson whacked another two-run homer over the left field wall, increasing Conyers' lead to 6-0. Lockwood closed out the game in the top of the seventh with two strikeouts.
"The biggest thing we like about our team right now as coaches, is we're coming together," said Bagwell. "One of the challenges of Legion ball is taking 18 kids from four or five different high schools, who always play against each other, and ‘hate' each other, and getting them to merge together. Every year about the fourth or fifth game they really start coming together, and you would never know that they were from different teams. All the personalities are meshing together, and we're real pleased with that."
