It wasn’t an easy opening season game, but Midway Middle’s Raiders racked up the W in a close 5-4 game against Sampson Monday afternoon.
Raider coach Steven Tyler said considering the limited amount of time he’d had to practice with his team, he thought the boys played well.
“You could tell it was our first game,” Tyler said. “The guys were tense and nervous to start with, you could tell there were butterflies, but when they got warmed up a little, they came to life. We made some mistakes we’ll have to work on, but considering we’ve only practiced about 6 or 7 times, including tryouts, I thought they did a good job.”
Midway jumped on the scoreboard in the first inning, with 1 run. Sampson’s at-bat brought no score. Neither team found home plate in the second inning, then the Raiders put 2 more on the board in the third to open up a 3-0 lead. Scores in the fourth and sixth from the Raiders put them ahead by 5, but Sampson’s bats warmed up in the sixth, and the Dark Horses brought in 3 runs to edge closer at 5-3.
Sampson got another run in the seventh, but it wasn’t enough, and Midway walked away the winner in a tight contest.
“Sampson came to play,” Tyler stressed. “They’ve got a really good team and they played us hard. We were fortunate to come away with the win.”
Dustin Holland was on the mound for the middle Raiders all 7 innings, tossing 14 strikeouts, allowing only 3 hits and giving up 2 earned runs.
Leading hitters for Midway were Landon Dorman, 2-3, with a walk and a run; Holland, 1-3, with a double; Gregory Nobles, 1-4, with 2 RBIs; Adam Butler, 1-2 with 2 RBIs; and Wesley Johnson, 2-3.
For Sampson, Logan Carr was on the hill, tossing all seven innings and getting 3 strikeouts.
Leading hitters for the Horses were Gray Sutter, 1-4; and Zack Darden, 2-3.
Tyler said there are 12 returning eighth-graders on his middle school team, along with 1 eighth-grader and six seventh-graders.
The young Raiders are 1-0 and travel Thursday to Hobbton Middle for a 4 p.m. game.
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