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STAR CORRESPONDENT

After dropping two tough games to the Tennessee High Vikings, the Elizabethton Cyclone baseball team needed a shot in the arm. Traveling to always-tough Unicoi Co., the feat wasn’t going to be easy, but Coach Ryan Presnell’s team got the job done behind stellar pitching from Bryson Rowland and out-hitting the host Blue Devils 5-2. The Cyclones got on the board first in the top of the third inning as a Rhett Slagle single drove home J.D. Hooks, who had singled with one out. Unicoi Co. answered quickly in the bottom of the frame, plating two runs to take a 2-1 lead. 

Elizabethton evened things up in the top of the fourth with a run after Logan Campbell was hit by a pitch and scored on a Jack Blevins two-out single. The score remained 2-1 until the top of the seventh when the Cyclones added a pair of insurance runs with two outs. Steven Meadows reached on an error. Slagle and Justin Whitehead both drew walks to load the bases with Cyclones. A Brayden Buckles pop fly couldn’t be handled by the Blue Devil second baseman, allowing both Meadows and Slagle to race home. Rowland earned the win by tossing 6.1 innings of two-hit baseball, allowing the one earned run. He struck out eight Blue Devils and issued seven walks. Whitehead came on to earn the save, retiring two Unicoi Co. batters – one by strikeout while walking one. Chris Chavez and Gavin Tipton had the only two hits for the Blue Devils in the game.