Amidst the rain and bad weather the county has seen this week, Straughn managed to fit in a regular season game Wednesday, defeating Kinston 11-1 in five innings at Straughn.

Straughn coach John Fussell said despite scoring 11 runs, the team did not make great contact on the ball.

“I know we scored 11 runs, but we didn’t hit the ball with a whole lot of authority,” he said. “We’ve got to do a better job of hitting. But, I thought we did real good on defense and I thought our pitchers did a real good job.”

The Tigers won the game, shooting out to a 4-0 lead after the second inning and with Zack Stinson on the mound.

Stinson won the game for Straughn, pitching 4.0 innings, allowing two hits, no walks, no runs and striking out four.

Cole Amstrong closed the game, threw one inning, gave up one run, earned one strikeout and allowed zero hits.

In the first inning, Straughn’s Chase Parker hit an RBI single to right field to score Nick Allen. Allen hit a double on a 2-and-1 count to left field.

The first of three runs in the second inning came on a sacrifice from Stinson to score Cole Armstrong.

The last two runs in the second inning came on a two-run double from Allen to left field, scoring Cody Hughes and Josh Dewrell. Hughes reached on an error and Dewrell got on base on a walk.

In the third, Armstrong hit an RBI single to score Drew Jones; Cody Hughes hit an RBI single to score Luke Fussell; Dewrell hit an RBI single to score Armstrong; and to round it off, Stinson knocked a two-run hit to score Hughes and Dewrell to go up 9-0.

The last two runs of the game came in the fourth on a two-run home run from Drew Jones to score Parker.

Kinston scored its only run in the fifth inning.

Fussell said he was “puzzled” at how the team can hit 15 home runs out of the park (so far in the season) and “sometimes can’t even get the ball out of the infield.”

“We can hit the ball out of the park, but we’re just kind of streaky,” he said. “We can hit the ball with authority, but we just don’t always do it.”

Dewrell was 2-for-4 with one RBI and one walk; Allen was 2-for-3 with one double, one single and three RBIs; Parker was 1-for-3 with one single and one RBI; Jones was 1-for-3 with one home run and two RBIs; Armstrong was 1-for-3 with one RBI; and Hughes was 2-for-3 with two singles.

Fussell said he would like to thank the volunteers that helped him prepare the field for Wednesday’s game.

“I really couldn’t have done it without some of the parents helping me get the field ready for the game (Wednesday),” Fussell said.

The Tigers (16-7, 2-0 in Class 3A, Area 3) will play their next area game at home against Luverne on Saturday at 4 p.m.