Blythewood stops Mauldin

Blythewood used an opportunistic offense and a solid defense behind the pitching of Justin Greider to defeat Mauldin 5-0 in the opening round of the Class 4A, District II playoffs on Thursday night.

It wasn’t the best performance, but for Bengals coach Barry Mizzell, it was just what his team needed. Blythewood will play at Easley in a winner’s bracket contest on Saturday afternoon.

“We didn’t swing the bats well, but this time of year you win and advance,” Mizzell said. “They made a few mistakes early that really helped us and we took advantage of them. We had a bunch of opportunities to score a bunch of runs, but just couldn’t get the big hit. But we hung in there and did what we had to do.”

Four of the five Blythewood (16-8) runs were unearned thanks to four Mauldin (15-10) errors. The Bengals collected six hits – two each from Jacob Davis, Aidan Massey and Todd Mattox.

The Bengals took a 3-0 lead in the first inning with one hit. They loaded the bases with no outs on a hit batter, a walk and single. Mattox grounded to third and the Mavericks got the force out at home, but the throw to first was wild, allowing Jordyn Adams to score.

Toby Roberson followed with another ground ball to third and the throw to first was wild, allowing two more runs to score.

Davis added an RBI single in the fourth inning, and Massey scored the final run when he doubled and ended up scoring on a wild pitch.

That was enough support for Greider, who improved to 5-1 on the season. He scattered six hits over seven innings with five strikeouts, two walks and two hit batters. But it was the right-hander’s ability to get out of trouble that proved to most impressive.

Mauldin had base runners in every inning and had the leadoff batter reach in five of the seven innings. They stranded nine runners with five being in scoring position. The Blythewood defense turned two double plays to help out, but the biggest sequence came in the third inning when Greider worked out of a no out, bases loaded jam.

“Justin didn’t have his best stuff tonight, but he battled his butt off. He had the one inning with the bases loaded and no outs and he bared down,” Mizzell said. “That’s just the type of kid he is. He made his best pitches in that inning.”

Greider allowed consecutive singles to open the third and then loaded the bases on a catcher’s interference call with the top of the Mavericks lineup coming to the plate. Greider then retired the side by getting a pop foul to the catcher, a strike out and a 5-3 ground ball.

“I’m thankful for the defense,” Greider said. “They hit the ball hard on the ground but we had good plays up the middle. My curveball wasn’t that great tonight but I worked my fastball in and out. Getting out of that third inning was amazing. It felt great.”

This story was originally published April 28, 2016 at 11:21 PM with the headline "Blythewood stops Mauldin."