Athens Drive starting pitcher Blair Betts held Green Hope at bay for most of today's game, striking out 7, giving up no hits, and pitching to the minimum of 12 batters in the first 4 innings (note - a walked batter was later picked off by Betts). This allowed his team to build a 4-0 lead, and Athens held on for an important 5-3 conference win.

Betts pitching (left) while Josam (right) watches VanGenderen's home run in the fourth

Joe Pistacchio started for Green Hope, pitched well, but just couldn't hold down a good hitting Athens Drive team. After a scoreless first inning, Athens' Ben Snotherly singled sharply past 3rd to start the bottom of the second. Betts laid down a good sacrifice bunt towards 3rd which was misplayed leaving runners on 1st and 2nd with no outs. A ground out moved the runners to 2nd and 3rd, a bloop single from Gerrit VanGenderen scored 1, followed by another short fly single from Dillon Rudio to score another, and a groundout scored a 3rd run, Athens up 3-0 after 2 innings.

Athens added another run in the 4th, as VanGenderen homered to right center, making the score 4-0 Athens Drive after 4 innings, and no hits for Green Hope.

Green Hope finally scores as Josam (left) singles in Pistacchio (right) from second

Betts started to tired in the 5th, a leadoff walk to Pistacchio was followed by Yoder's grounder to first, could have been a double play, but a low throw to 2nd had both runners on with no outs. Josam's sharp single to left scored one, with Green Hope runners still on 1st and 2nd with no outs. Credit Betts with clutch pitching, or blame Green Hope for not clutch hitting, but the next 3 Falcon batters all struckout, ending the inning, Athens up 4-1 after 4 1/2 innings.

As hard as it was to finally score a run off Betts, that accomplishment was negated in the bottom of the 5th by one swing of Betts' own bat, as he homered off Green Hope reliever Daniel Sondag to make the score Athens 5-1 after 5 innings.

Betts (left) answers with a home run as Shambley (right) watches the ball go over the fence

Green Hope finally got to Betts in the 6th, a leadoff single from Adam Boghosian was followed by a double from Grant Shambley to drive in Boghosian. Another double off the centerfield wall by Wesley Clark scored Shambley for a second run. Betts struckout the next batter, but his day was done, ending with 11 strikeouts and allowing only 4 hits in 5 1/3 innings. David Hamm came in to end the rally, getting 2 popups, and not allowing another Green Hope hit.

Boghosian (top), Shambley (middle), and Clark (bottom) had consecutive hits in the 6th inning

Pistacchio (3-1) takes his first loss of the year, but more importantly Athens moves to 4-2 in the conference tied for second with Middle Creek (both 1 1/2 games behind Holly Springs), while Green Hope moves to 3-4 in the Tri-9 tied with Apex for 6th and out of the state playoffs.