Seahawks subdue Cougars on strength of big fifth inning, beat Chesapeake, 7-0 in second round of 4A East Regional 4A Quarterfinals

South River redeemed an earlier late game meltdown to Chesapeake, scoring five times in the fifth to scorch the Cougars 7-0 on Monday at SRHS.

Connor Cox racked up four RBIs on two hits for South River, while Jake Gratz had huge at bats in each of his plate appearances. Cox doubled in the first and smoked a homer in the fifth that nearly reached the bay on the fly; while Gratz walked, had a perfect sacrifice bunt and then doubled in the fifth pushing across two backbreaking RBIs. Gratz also was stellar behind the plate, hustling down an overthrow at first to nail the wayward base runner at second.

Scott Mitchell was his dominating self, posting nine strikeouts and holding the Cougars to just 4 hits over six shutout innings. Pierce Tyrrell came on in the seventh and struck out the last batter of the game with two men on to preserve the shutout. 

Gabe Vertucci was 2 for 4 with a run scored and had a number of outstanding plays at second. Mitchell contributed offensively with an RBI single, while Kyle Leonard and freshman Eric Sieber also had hits for South River. On defense, Kyle Canavan corralled a number of difficult balls to short, making hard plays look easy.

The Hawks (16-5) move on to face Broadneck Wednesday in the 3rd round at South River at 4 PM.