By PATRICK CASEY
The South Walton Seahawks took advantage of six fielding errors by the visiting Port St. Joe Sharks while Rhett Glover had a key single in the sixth inning to break a one-run game open as the Walton County squad earned a 10-3 win on a chilly Friday evening.
South Walton, which has won its first three games in District 4 of Class A, scored solo runs in both the first and second innings to take a 2-0 lead. A pair of hit batters led to Stanford Beauchamp scoring on a wild pitch in the first inning while Alex Smith scored the second run as the Seahawks padded the lead with a pair of fielding errors by the Sharks.
Port St. Joe trimmed the deficit to 2-1 in the top of the third inning as Bryce Register scored on a groundout after a pair of Seahawk errors on a batted ball moved him around to third base.
South Walton added a run in both the fourth and fifth innings to go up 4-1. Hunter Crawley scored in the fourth inning as he singled, stole second and later scored after a bad throw on Zach Lance’s single. Jack Flynn added the next run as he singled and eventually scored on a passed ball.
Port St. Joe had little luck getting hits off of starter Tuck Stafford until the sixth inning, when they put together their only legitimate hits of the night. Chipper Wood led off with a single and moved to second when Tony Yowell walked. Jarkeice Davis doubled in a run with Will Ramsey adding a sacrifice fly to cut the margin to 4-3 before Stafford coaxed a pair of pop outs to end the threat.
South Walton responded to put the game away with six runs off of Sharks relievers in the bottom of the sixth by sending 12 batters to the plate. Beauchamp and Austin Garofalo walked with Lance sacrificing to move them to second and third. Glover singled them both in and would later score after a Jeremy Pfeiffer single and walks to Flynn and Alex Smith. A throwing error on a force play at home finished the damage as South Walton ended the frame with a 10-3 lead.
Lance came on to pitch the top of the seventh as he closed the contest by striking out two of the three batters he faced.
South Walton improved to 3-3 overall with the win while Port St. Joe dropped to 4-3 overall and 2-2 in district play.
South Walton will travel to face North Bay Haven on Thursday before returning home to host West Gadsden on Friday in a rematch of a 20-3 pasting of the Panthers on the road on Feb. 13.
