While the camouflage jerseys the Eastside baseball team wore during “Duck Dynasty Night” Monday were new, the result wasn’t as the Eagles picked up their 19th win.
Eastside (19-4, 11-2) defeated visiting Lumpkin County 13-3 behind 11 hits offensively, and seven allowed by starter Peyton Pallay in 3 2/3 innings, with two strikeouts and two walks. Gray Ritchey came in relief, allowing one hit and one walk.
The Indians (11-12, 6-7) opened up the first inning with two base runners and only one out, before Evan House snagged a line drive and flipped the ball to shortstop Hank Steele to get out of the inning.
Cody Walker set the table for the Eagles in the home half of the first with a leadoff single and Musashi Briem cleared the table with a two-run homer to put Eastside up 2-0 after one inning of play.
Pallay worked a quick second inning, allowing a pair of hits, but again using a double play of the 1-6-3 variety to get out of the inning. Eastside went quietly in the second, putting a goose-egg of their own on the board. The Indians continued to swing the bats in the third inning and strung together a leadoff double and a pair of singles to plate their first run and cut the lead in half. The Eagles answered right back with Walker again being the spark plug getting things started with a bunt single. A Lumpkin error and a hit batsman loaded the bases for the Eagles. The heart of the Eastside lineup then attacked with a single from Hunter Ballard followed by a Drew Buckhault sac-fly and back-to-back-to-back singles from Nick Womack, Daniel Garrett and Hank Steele to help extend the lead to 5-1 at the close of the third inning.
The Indians kept chipping away and scored a run in the fourth inning. Gray Ritchey came on in relief of Pallay in the fifth and Lumpkin managed to push another run across to narrow the gap to 5-3 at the middle of the inning. A pitching change for the Indians allowed the Eagles to take advantage of the situation with a leadoff single from Buckhault followed by Womack reaching on error and walk to Garrett to load the bases. House, Walker and Travis Smith each earned an RBI plating runs as Lumpkin’s pitching collapsed. Subsequent hits from the killer B’s, Briem, Ballard and Buckhault, gave the Eagles the 10 run lead they needed to end the game courtesy of the mercy rule at 13-3.
The evening was dubbed Duck Dynasty Night after the hit television show, with players wearing special jerseys and fans asked to come out as their favorite Duck Dynasty character. Robyn White and Caleb Dobbs were awarded best dressed.
The Eagles will finish their regular season at Chestatee Friday.