Hilton Head High falls to Chapin, sets stage for showdown Tuesday

The Hilton Head Island High School baseball team will have a night to think about their postseason chances.

The Seahawks wound up on the losing end against Chapin on Monday night at the Nest, 12-8, setting the stage for a winner-take-all final between the same two teams, on the same field, at 5 p.m. Tuesday in the 4A District VII championship.

The Seahawks gave the visiting Eagles plenty of help Monday, yielding five unearned runs — the most painful of them coming on Kale Rhame’s 3-run blast to center field with two outs in the top of the seventh inning. The Seahawks had cut the deficit to one run in the bottom of the sixth.

“Our defense hurt us, big time,” Seahawks head coach Ken Soucy said. “We can’t give up more outs than we gave up. Big inning in the seventh — two-out error, catcher’s interference — so we gave them five outs in that inning. That’s what killed us in that particular inning. And it was like that most of the night.”

The Seahawks got off to a slow start, trailing 9-3 going into the bottom of the fifth inning. Chapin starter Cade Austin had them off-balance for a while with his repertoire of off-speed pitches. But Hilton Head started to figure him out in the fifth, as Carmen Mlodzinski launched a solo home run to center and Chris Brubaker laced an RBI-double to cut Chapin’s lead to four.

After a scoreless inning of relief by Jacob Hussong, the Seahawks came out fired up in the bottom of the sixth. Jake Roberts singled, Stratton Pollitzer walked and Koty Brigham singled to load the bases with one out. Dalton Shaw’s ground out plated one run, and Mlodzinski followed that up with a run-scoring single. Eric Foggo cut the deficit to one with his RBI-single, but the Seahawks left the bases loaded to head into the seventh trailing 9-8. That’s as close as they’d come.

Logan Toomer struck out the first two Chapin hitters in the top of the seventh, but a throwing error put Robert King on base and a catcher’s interference gave the Eagles runners at first and second. Up to the plate stepped Chapin clean-up hitter Rhame, who had been 0-for-4 to that point. Toomer tried to slip a fastball by him and Rhame made him pay, sending the ball over the tallest part of the fence in straight-away center field.

That took the wind out from under the Seahawks’ wings, and they went down quietly in the bottom of the seventh.

Soucy quickly hit the reset button after the loss, knowing his squad will have a clean slate Tuesday — and star pitcher Mlodzinski will be on the hill to start the game.

“We’ve got our ace on the mound, so we’ll see how it plays out,” Soucy said. “In a one-game series, if you’ve got your ace, you’re in pretty good shape.”

This story was originally published May 1, 2017 at 9:02 PM with the headline "Hilton Head High falls to Chapin, sets stage for showdown Tuesday."