McKinney, Hilltoppers Grab 13-4 Rout of Tennessee High

Make no mistake about it, Tennessee High’s baseball team has surprised many folks in Gill Payne’s first nine games as coach.

But the Vikings are still miles away from being what they want to be, a point Big Nine Conference leader Science Hill proved with emphasis Wednesday night.

Jumping out to a 6-0 second inning lead and wading through four pitchers for 13 hits, the Hilltoppers remained the Big Nine’s only unbeaten with a 13-4 rout at Tod Houston Field.

Ben McKinney went 3-for-5 with two RBIs and also pitched the first five innings for Science Hill, upping his record to 3-0. Six other Hilltoppers picked up RBIs.

And Science Hill (8-1, 5-0) made enough mistakes to lose on other nights. It supplied THS (7-2, 5-2) with three errors, three walks, two hit batters and two passed balls in a four-inning stretch.

But the Vikings could only reduce the six-run hole to three, then saw a better-hitting team erupt for five sixth inning runs to turn a reasonably competitive game into a crawl to the final out.

"We’re making young mistakes," Payne said. "It’s a learning process."

THS committed four errors and issued six walks. The Hilltoppers scored four runs in the top of the first inning on two hits, thanks to a hit batter, consecutive walks – including one with the bases loaded – and a botched pickoff play.

When Science Hill turned three hits into two second inning runs, the Vikings were in trouble.

"That was a dagger," Payne said of the first two innings.

Yet THS had a chance to recover as it fought back to trim the deficit to 6-3 and had the bases loaded with two outs in the fourth. But McKinney slipped a called third strike past Cody Snyder, quieting an excited Viking dugout.

"If they get a hit there," McKinney said, "that ends our momentum and puts them in the game. We needed that out."

Nathaniel Patterson, Austin Peay signee Lucas Anderson, Daniel Norris and Derek Pfeiffer also knocked in two runs for the Hilltoppers. Every Science Hill starter recorded a hit or an RBI.

Despite his team’s sporadic defense, coach Ryan Edwards dubbed it their best game of the season.

"Our guys had their focus and intensity from the start," Edwards said. "We knew Tennessee High was the best team we’ve played this year."

Edwards, who served as Austin Peay’s pitching coach last year, wasn’t familiar with the Vikings’ 9-24 season in 2007 but knew about Payne’s quick-turnaround reputation.

"He’s a good coach and he brought the shortstop with him," Edwards said of Jarrod Payne, an all-conference pick last year when he and his father were at Elizabethton.

Gill Payne, whose team plays Knox Farragut today in the Sports Belle Tournament in Knoxville, said his son has helped him keep the first two losses in perspective.

"We were sitting in the hot tub [Tuesday] night after Crockett beat us [13-3] and I was so frustrated," Payne said. "And he told me, ‘This is a different team. Do you think they would have beaten D-B, come back from 10-2 against J.J. Kelly and beaten [Sullivan] East with [Matt Shepherd] pitching last year?’

"So to be 7-2 and 5-2 in the conference at this stage, I’ll take it."