Bill Lusk | WVOW Sports
MAN Braxton Messer outdueled Jonah Adkins to lead the Man Hillbillies to a 3-0 victory over the Belfry Pirates Thursday night at William "Tootie" Carter Athletic Field.
Messer, making his second start of the season, allowed just a leadoff single to Adkins to start the game.
Messer struck out 11, walked one and hit one, throwing 63 of his 87 pitches for strikes.
Adkins allowed just one hit, a one-out single to Brayden Compton in the third inning through five innings.
In the bottom of the sixth, Man scored three unearned runs with two outs.
Bo Thompson singled with one out and moved to second on Landon Cantrell's sacrifice bunt and came around to score when Cam Gerace reached on an error for a 1-0 Man lead.
Messer singled to left to bring home courtesy runner Hunter Maynor to make it 2-0 and Hunter Gibson's double scored Messer giving Man a 3-0 lead.
That would be plenty of run support for Messer, who was in complete control of the Pirates bats and set them down in order in the top of the seventh to preserve the win and shutout.
Adkins, who had Belfry's lone hit, was stellar on the mound matching Messer pitch for pitch. Adkins allowed three unearned runs on four hits, struck out eight, walked one and threw 66 of his 89 pitches for strikes in six innings.
Gibson had a double and one RBI and Messer one hit, one RBI and one run scored for Man at the plate. Thompson singled and scored and Compton had one hit for the Hillbillies.
Man won its fourth straight to improve to 6-1 while Belfry fell to 2-5 with the loss.