FROSTBURG — Mountain Ridge rallied to make it a 3-3 game after four innings, but Southern had the answer.
The Rams put up a five-spot in the fifth — which included a three-run blast by Ryan Bird onto the hill in left field — and scored four more runs over the final two frames to rout Mountain Ridge, 12-4, on Tuesday night.
“We said from about the fourth inning on, ‘Hey, top five aren’t doing too great right now. We need somebody to step up in those last four,’ and we did,” Southern head coach Hayden McLaughlin said.
“The main message was just get on base, give us a chance, pitch by pitch, pitch by pitch, make an adjustment and attack. And we did that. Put the ball in play, applied pressure and things rolled our way tonight.”
Southern improved to 2-0 overall and 1-0 in the Western Maryland Athletic Conference. Mountain Ridge fell to 0-3 (0-2 WestMAC).
The Rams’ rally in the top of the fifth began with the bottom of their order. JD Nesselrodt led off the frame with a walk, and Lucas Lambert stood in the box and took a hit by pitch.
That flipped the lineup card for Cade Leader to drive in the go-ahead run on an opposite-field single, Reece Tasker followed with an RBI knock to left and Bird left the yard one batter later.
Nesselrodt had a three-hit day out of the No. 8 hole, driving in two runs and scoring twice himself.
Bird had three RBIs and scored twice, Leader was 2 for 5 with a double and two ribbies, Tasker was 2 for 4 with a double, and courtesy runners Jacob Welch and Andy McCartney both scored twice.
Jaxon Glotfelty entered as a defensive replacement at third in the fifth inning, and he made a diving stop and a strong throw to first to rob John Wood of an RBI single to strand two Miners on base.
Glotfelty then doubled in a run in the seventh.
“We got production from guys that we need to get production from,” McLaughlin said.
Leader, a left-handed pitcher, was the winning arm, allowing three runs (one earned) on four hits in four innings. He struck out three and walked none.
The right-handed Bird threw the final three frames, surrendering a run on three hits with four strikeouts and five walks.
Mountain Ridge fell behind 3-0 before leveling the score with a three-run fourth inning.
Back-to-back Southern errors put two on base to lead off in the inning, and a John Delaney RBI hustle double and a two-run double by Levi Clise leveled the score.
Nesselrodt, the Rams’ left fielder, threw out the possible go-ahead run at the plate later in the inning on a single by Nathan Miller. Leader limited the damage on the bump and it was all Rams from there.
“Just fundamental baseball. We didn’t know situations,” said first-year Mountain Ridge head coach Josh Glass on the difference over the final three innings.
“We had a force out at third. It could have been a double play and we tried to tag it. We’re a young team, so there are a lot of things that we need to learn from. We haven’t been outside hardly at all.”
Delaney, a Delaware commit, and Clise both drove in two runs each for Mountain Ridge.
Mountain Ridge right-hander Carver Robeson was tabbed with the loss. He allowed eight runs (six earned) on six hits in five innings, striking out seven and walking one.
Wood allowed four runs on four hits over the final two frames.
Southern finished with a 10-7 edge in hits, and the Rams committed one more error, 3-2.
Tasker, the Rams’ catcher, also caught a Mountain Ridge runner trying to steal second base in the third inning.
Both teams are back in action Wednesday.
Mountain Ridge heads to Berkeley Springs at 7 p.m., and Southern travels to No. 2 Allegany (2-0, 1-0 WestMAC) at 4:30 p.m.
“Just want to see us go out and compete,” McLaughlin said. “We have the chance to be 3-0 at the end of this week. Also have as good a chance to be 1-2 at the end of this week. And we just got to attack each day with a new attitude, new mindset, and just go play, be gritty.”