River Bluff baseball wins Forest Acres Classic

With teams starting to pitch around Aaron Adams and Brandon Tillmon, Josh Senter is getting more opportunities at the plate.

Senter made the most of his chances Thursday by delivering a three-run double as River Bluff scored four times in the fifth on its way to a 7-0 victory over Sumter in the championship game of the Forest Acres Classic.

It was the Gators’ first title in the event, which moved the championship game up a day because of the threat of rain Friday.

“That is how things have been going through the whole season, so I’ve just got to try to do my best,” Senter said. “I usually get a lot of fastballs because they don’t want to walk me because they have already walked them.”

Senter finished with seven RBIs in the Gators’ two victories Thursday. He went 2-for-4 with three RBIs in the 16-3 win over Dutch Fork in the semifinal game.

Against Sumter, the Gators led 1-0 going into the fifth inning. With one out, Walker McDowell reached on a walk. Then, Sumter pitcher Brandon Spittle intentionally walked Adams and then walked Tillmon to load the bases.

Senter cleared the bases with a shot in the left-center field gap to make it 4-0.

“Josh is a really good player,” River Bluff coach Mark Bonnette said. “He is hitting the ball pretty well. But when he starts going like we know he can, then our lineup is pretty tough. They pitched around Aaron and Brandon and he made them pay. We’ve got total confidence in Josh.”

Adams finished a home run short of the cycle, and also had an RBI. The College of Charleston commit was named the Charlie Fetner MVP for the tournament.

“There were really good teams and players in this tournament and I’m just blessed my team put me in a position to succeed,” Adams said. “And I am really happy we won the tournament.”

Tillmon pitched 5 1/3 innings to pick up the victory. The Liberty signee allowed two hits and struck out three in picking up his fourth win of the season.

The Gators (15-2) will have two non-region games next week before a crucial stretch of Region 5-4A games to close the season. River Bluff is tied with White Knoll and the two teams meet April 12 and 15.

“We divided the season into parts. The first part was our region part. And this tournament was kind of a season of its own playing four games,” Bonnette said. “I am proud of the way they played. They played their butts off.”

This story was originally published March 31, 2016 at 10:53 PM with the headline "River Bluff baseball wins Forest Acres Classic."