East Clarendon's Caleb Coker tosses gem in 6-0 victory over Johnsonville

          Turbeville – “Caleb kind of does what he does,” East Clarendon High School baseball coach Curtis Johnson said in explaining the pitching prowess of senior right-hander Caleb Coker.

               Coker did what he does against Johnsonville on Monday in dominating fashion. He tossed a 2-hit shutout while striking out 12 and not walking a batter as the Wolverines came away with a 6-0 victory at Shad Hall Field.

               “He goes out and throws strikes,” Johnson said of Coker, who had 57 strikes among his 81 pitches. “He had his breaking ball going, and once he has his breaking ball going he's really good for us.”

           The Flashes’ Larkin Powell led off the game with a base hit against Coker. Their only other hit came from No. 9 hitter Cayleb Tanner with two outs in the third.

               “The first couple of batters were kind of rocky,” Coker said of his first inning. “When the No. 3 hitter (Landyn Cribb) came up and I struck him out, it was pretty much over after that.

               “I went out there and hit my spots. I did what they told me to do. Things started going good in the first inning.”

           The victory improved ECHS to 10-5 overall, but more importantly 3-0 in the 4-team Region 5-Class A. East Clarendon can put itself in a great position to lock up the region championship with a win on Tuesday at Johnsonville. The Flashes fell to 5-2 overall and 2-1 in the region.

           “He is a tremendous pitcher,” JHS head coach Carson Carroll said of Coker, who owns a 5-1 win-loss record with a save and 36 strikeouts against just six walks in 32 1/3 innings. “I tip my hat to him. He went out there with a game plan and he executed it. So kudos to him. He deserves it.”

           Johnsonville started freshman righty Gavin Marlowe on the mound. The Wolverines scored two runs in the each of the first three innings, finishing with 11 hits. All of them were singles.

           “Gavin didn’t do bad,” Carroll said. “He threw strikes. They got some hits, did a really good job of putting the ball in play by them.”

           Marlowe went all six innings, having 54 strikes among his 72 pitches. He struck out two and didn’t walk a batter. Only three of the six runs were earned.

           KJ Floyd, Hunter Mixon and Dawson Beard each had two hits for EC. Whit Nesbitt. Michael Morris, Blease Hardy, Walker Partee and Foster Matthews had the other hits.

           Nesbitt, Floyd, Mixon, McKenzie and Partee all had a run batted in, while Nesbitt, Morris, Mixon, Hardy and courtesy runner Takoda Cornelius all scored a run.

           Johnson hopes East Clarendon’s offensive performance on Monday will be a jumpstart to the rest of the season.

“We've been struggling. Coming in we were hitting .238 as a team,” Johnson said. “We talked about it. We've been hitting the ball hard but right at people. How we want to perform offensively is we want to put pressure on people and get guys on. I think we turned the corner tonight. We got 11 hits. I'm proud of the guys, proud of the effort.”

The Wolverines have played a difficult non-region schedule, facing the likes of AAAAA schools White Knoll, Carolina Forest and Sumter with two games against Socastee left on the schedule, AAAA Irmo and West Florence and AAA Camden and Manning.

“I just wanted our guys to face better arms,” Johnson said of the difficult schedule. “For where we want to try and end up at (winning a state title), we're going to have to beat guys who throw 85, 86, 87 (miles per hour). We're going to have to beat those guys, so i want our guys to see better arms, to know what it's like when we get in those situations so it doesn't sneak up on them.”

               Carroll believes the best is still to come for the Flashes.

               “We’re below my expectations,” he said. “We haven't hit our stride yet. We have done decently hitting before tonight. We've had problems with leaving guys on base, leaving guys in scoring position. Overall, we've done a pretty good job of putting the bat on the ball though.”