By Bru Nimmons
Sports Editor
bnimmons@thepccourier.com

LIBERTY — Overcoming an early 3-0 deficit with a six-run second inning, the Liberty High School baseball team looked likely to keep its region championship hopes alive on Monday night against the Chesnee Eagles.

Instead, the Devils were unable to muster any offense the rest of the way as the Eagles slowly pulled back ahead before pulling away to hand the Devils a 13-6 loss and knock them out of contention for the Region 1-2A championship.

“I’m so proud of the effort and the grit that we showed,” Liberty baseball coach Trey Ulmer said. “We just couldn’t finish it in the end.”

The Devils dug themselves into an early hole, with the first three Eagles batters reaching base on the way to a 1-0 lead before starter Blade Epps was able to draw a fly out for Liberty. Epps looked like he might escape the inning without further damage, but Coy Wall singled to right field to give Chesnee a 3-0 lead before the Devils got the third out.

Liberty couldn’t take advantage of hits from Cade Collins and Ethan Carroll in the bottom of the first inning and looked to make up for it in the bottom of the second after a clean inning from Epps.

Jacob Melton and Nolan Oglesby both hit singles and Lavonte Henderson added a walk to load the bases for the Devils with one out in the second, then Chase Smith got them on the board with a single to right field. An error allowed Henderson to score, and the Red Devil bats kept the show going with singles from T.J. Borow, Carson Garrick and Carroll, allowing Liberty to build a 6-3 lead.

The Eagles answered quickly, with consecutive hits to start the third inning, leading to a sacrifice fly from Wall that cut the lead to 6-4. CJ Morgan then tied it up for Chesnee with a triple to deep right field to knot the game at 6-6 heading into the fourth inning.

Epps pitched a spotless fourth inning, but the Devils were unable to muster any offense, and Chesnee came back strong to start the fifth inning. Another RBI single from Morgan ended Epps’ day, and Borow came on in relief, giving up one more run to give the Eagles an 8-6 lead.

The bleeding continued for the Devils in the sixth as Jacob Melton came on in relief of Borow and struggled with his control. Chesnee added five more runs in the inning to build the lead to 13-6, and Liberty went down in order in the seventh inning to end the game.

The loss dropped the Red Devils to third place in the region, where they will likely stay even if they defeat the Eagles on Thursday at Chesnee. Even though the Devils are no longer in the region championship hunt, Ulmer still believes they can compete with any team in the state.

“We are very capable of playing with anybody, competing with anybody and beating anybody,” Ulmer said. “I told the team that how we respond to a tough, emotional loss like this will be the key to how we finish our story.”