South County Begins Baseball Playoffs with 8-1 win over West Springfield

This one was easy.

Two weeks ago, West Springfield and South County met in Lorton, and the Stallions pulled out a in the bottom of the seventh.

On Saturday night, in the Patriot District semifinals, South County advanced to the district title game behind a dominating 11-strikeout performance from Tyler Frazier.

The tall righty, bound for UNC-Greensboro after the school year, started out with fastballs and finished with curveballs, stifling the explosive West Springfield offense and leading the Stallions to a 8-1 win.

As the district’s top seed, South County was the home team even though the game was hosted by West Springfield.

Frazier matched his season high in K’s and only allowed two hits, each coming in the top of the third when the Spartans scored their lone run to cut South County’s lead to 4-1.

After permitting the run, Frazier proceeded to retire 15 of the next 16 West Springfield batters as the Stallions padded their lead with solo homers from Luke Bondurant and Kyle Fairbanks in the third and an RBI double from catcher Mike Perez in the sixth en route to the emphatic win.

South County will face Lake Braddock, the district’s No. 2 seed, who beat Woodson earlier Saturday, on Monday night back at West Springfield for the district title. The district’s top four teams qualified for the Northern Region tournament, so Saturday’s semifinal games didn’t end the season for any of the participants.

Frazier recorded eight of his strikeouts against the heart of West Springfield’s lineup. Trevor Snook, Connor Tagg and Frank Sturek, the Spartans’ 4-5-6 hitters, put just one ball in play. West Springfield catcher David Pyon, who fanned twice himself, said Frazier pitched as well as he ever has.

“We just weren’t ready for what he had,” said Pyon, who has played with and against Frazier since Little League. “He came out throwing fastballs at the beginning and we just weren’t aggressive. They beat us on the aggressive part.”

Frazier said the key to this match-up between the nearby rivals was that South County didn’t let West Springfield come back after getting ahead early. That was starkly different from the May 6 game that saw Frazier’s squad squander an early 6-0 lead and have to fight back from a 12-7 hole.

“It feels fantastic to come out here as the one-seed, wearing all white on West Springfield’s field,” said senior infielder Bondurant, playing shortstop since Frazier was on the mound. “It felt pretty good. We showed them this is our house here. It feels good for everyone.”

Bondurant’s key blast to open the bottom of the third gave the Stallions back a four-run lead after West Springfield used a double, stolen base and single to get on the board.

“We talk about responding,” said South County coach Mark Luther. “[When] we score some runs, the response is coming out and playing great defense the next inning. … from the other team’s standpoint I can imagine it takes a little wind out of their sails.”

West Springfield skipper John James said the homer didn’t make much of a difference considering how Frazier was pitching.

“We just didn’t have an answer for it,” he said. “[Frazier] was commanding three pitches. Anytime a kid commands three pitches, it’s tough to hit. Hat’s off to him.”

“One down, eight to go” is how the Stallions ended their post-game huddle in right field. That’s the number of wins remaining if South County is to capture the state title. Next up is Lake Braddock, and a win against the Bruins would move the Stallions to 22-0 on the season.

“We just want to keep on doing the things that we do to keep the momentum going,” Luther said. “We started that tonight and it’s important to get another win and keep playing another game.”