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By Jed Blackwell
Sports Editor
Chesnee pitcher Brandon Henderson turned in his usual magnificent performance Monday night in game one of the 2A State Championship series.
Henderson climbed the mound against Bishop England and surrendered just four hits, striking out 15 in seven innings of work.
Unfortunately for the Eagles, those four hits were enough for the Bishops to take a 3-1 win and grab a 1-0 lead in the best-of-three series.
“I thought Brandon pitched a great game, Chesnee coach Dean Jones said. “We had one inning there where we made a couple of mistakes. Walking the first batter was the biggest mistake. Then we made another mistake or two.”
All the mistakes - and all Bishop England’s runs - came in the fourth inning. A leadoff walk, a stolen base, a wild pitch, two singles, an error and a double-steal put the Bishops out front 3-0, and let Bishop England pitcher Ryan Connolly put things on cruise control.
Connolly, a Coastal Carolina signee, confused the Eagles with a variety of arm angles and a deceptive motion.
“He changed speeds really well,” Jones said. “Certainly, he’s a very good pitcher.”
“I don’t have much velocity, but my sidearm slider tails into righties and it moves a lot,” Connolly said. “I feel like I threw pretty good.”
Connolly allowed just two hits through the first six innings, both doubles to the left-centerfield gap by Dustin Sherbert.
“My leadoff batter said it tailed a lot, so I let the first one go by to see what it did,” Sherbert aid of his first at-bat against Connolly. “He got me 0-and-2 and came back with a breaking ball and I let it go. He came back over the top with a fastball. I saw it and took a rip at it.”
Chesnee did mount a rally in the bottom of the seventh. Catcher Ryan Mitchell was hit by a pitch and lifted for a pinch runner, who came all the way around from first to score on David Jones’ double down the right field line.
“It was very important to score there,” Sherbert said. “We waited until the last inning to get up. We’re going to have to go back out Wednesday and try to do it again.”
The late score brought the large Chesnee crowd back into the game, but was snuffed out by a strikeout. Still, the crowd support is something that Bishop England coach Bill Collier appreciated about the championship atmosphere.
“Chesnee has a great crowd,” Collier said. “We ain’t played in front of a crowd this big. We don’t get this many people at our place. It was a great atmosphere.”
Jones just wishes that the Eagles could have made the crowd a little happier.
“From what I had heard beforehand, I didn’t know if we could play with them or not,” Jones said. “After today, I feel like we can play with them. Not taking anything away from them, they’re good. But I’d love to have a chance, on this field, to play them again.”
Jones will get that chance on Wednesday, but it will come at Bishop England. The game is scheduled for 7 p.m.
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