After a 7-4 win in game two of the Petitt Cup Championship Series, the Lexington County Blowfish will play in a winner-take-all championship game Saturday Aug. 12. It will be a chance for the organization to win its first championship since moving to Lexington County.

“Very grateful for the fans that were here today,” Blowfish head coach K.C. Brown said after the game. “Very pumped up…I don’t know if I’m gonna sleep tonight, I don’t know if the guys are gonna sleep tonight, but that was a lot of fun. Let’s do it tomorrow.”

Andrew Duval got the nod for the Blowfish on the mound after he was eligible to pitch again following his productive performance in game one against the Forest City Owls.

Duval managed opposing contact and the Sharks couldn’t manage to string together hard hits and manufacture runs for the first three innings. 

The Blowfish, on the other hand, continued their hot hitting at home. Phillip Ard crushed a home run to deep left center for his fourth long ball of the playoffs. It also gave the Blowfish a 1-0 lead in the second inning.

“He’s really heated up over the past three weeks,” Zach Cowart said after the game. “He’s been awesome to watch. He’s smacking balls out of the yard left and right. I mean, he just transferred to a DII school and I’m a DII player as well. So he’s just representing for the DII bandits out there.”

Two innings later, Ard was at it again. Cowart hit a line drive single and made it to second after an errant throw to second while he was attempting to steal base. Cooper Blauser walked and Cowart made it to third from the wild pitch. Ard drove in more runs after his line drive single resulted in a “little league home run” after a fleury of Sharks errors resulted in Ard making his way home and giving the Blowfish a commanding 4-0 lead. 

The Sharks finally entered the run column in the top of the fourth when Dylan Jeffries hit a deep fly double to right field and scored Cam Hassert.

The Blowfish got that run right back in the bottom of the fourth. Ryan Ouzts led off the inning with a laser up the middle to get on first. Zander Buchan drew a walk on the next at-bat and a wild pitch eventually moved those runners to second and third. Dariyan Pendergrass hit a sacrifice fly to left field that was just shallow enough to score Ouzts. The Sharks eventually got out of the inning but not after starting pitcher Benny Wilson left after plunking Ty Jackson in the helmet, forcing the Sharks to dip into their bullpen trailing 5-1.

Wilmington pitching struggles helped Lexington County tack on two more runs in the fifth. Ouzts got on base with a walk and Buchan hit a double to move the runners to second and third with two outs. Pendergrass drew a walk the next at-bat and Ouzts was able to score after the fourth ball sailed past the catcher and into the backstop. Buchan moved to third and scored soon after when a balk was called on Sharks pitcher T.J. Dimitriou that not only brought home Buchan, but sent Pendergrass to second and gave the Blowfish a 7-1 lead.

The Sharks made things a little more interesting by posting a three-run sixth inning fueled by an RBI infield single by Stephen DiTomaso and a two-run RBI double to dead center by A.J. Mendolla. Duval was finally out of the game after 5.2 innings.

“My mindset was basically to be in attack mode,” Duval said after the game. “Stay in attack mode and just get in my groove and once I got in my groove, that was that.”

 Alex Lyon came in to pitch and got them out of the rest of the inning. The Blowfish lead was cut to 7-4 after seven.

The Sharks gained momentum and in the seventh inning, seriously threatened the Blowfish lead. In the top of the seventh, the Sharks had a runner in scoring position with two outs but Lyon picked up a huge strikeout to get them out of the jam.

C.J. Czerwinski entered the game to pitch for the Blowfish in the top of the eighth and the Sharks wasted no time getting on base. A Cowart error and a hit batsman brought the game tying run to the plate with no outs. The threat was eliminated after Warren Holzemer, Zach Cowart and Phillip Ard pulled off the double play. Czerwinski struck out the next batter to end the inning and get out of another jam.

The Blowfish entered the ninth with a 7-4 lead and the Sharks seemed to threaten again after an infield single led off the inning. However, the double play trio of Holzemer, Cowart and Ard struck again and allowed Czerwinski to record the final out with no runners on base and no threat to the lead.

“So, in the past three games, me and Warren have actually turned like six double plays in the last three games so me and him have just really been clicking up the middle,” Cowart said about the electric infield play. “And Phil has saved my butt so many times at first base. You can’t find a better first baseman. Us three right now are clicking on all cylinders and we’re getting the job done and helping our pitchers out.”

The importance of the double plays and the stellar defensive infield performance was not lost on Brown.

“Looking at the box score, you can kind of feel the momentum kind of slowly turning towards the Sharks, so hats off to Alex Lyon, who is a ground ball pitcher,” Brown said. “We like our defense so we trust Lyon to come in there and get some ground balls and then hats off to C.J. for getting some ground balls as well. And Zach Cowart, he’ll probably have a smart comment after this, but there have been some growing pains defensively but I just want to stay on him like, ‘hey man, play with confidence because the ball is going to come right back to you,’. The ball will find you in baseball so hats off to him for always being ready.”

The Blowfish’s 7-4 win puts them one game away from a Coastal Plain League championship. First pitch will be 7:05 p.m. Saturday Aug. 12 at Lexington County Baseball Stadium. 

Game two had its fair moments of intensity including a moment where the Sharks had a player and coach get ejected from the game and players getting chippy with one another. Brown expects the intensity to be raised and for the stakes to create an electric atmosphere for the championship game.

“I would not be surprised if it gets kind of chippy again tomorrow,” Brown said. “We’ll try to keep our guys focused and focus our own energy on ourselves and picking up our own teammates. I know high school football had a big game tonight so, tomorrow, if people of Lexington need something to do, they should certainly come out and support the local guys.”