Thomas perfect in first outing of year for Oak Ridge baseball team

DELTA -- The Oak Ridge baseball team scored three unearned runs with the help of two hits against Delta in the top of the first inning on Wednesday.

"That takes the pressure off me a little bit and it keeps the defense ready," first-year Oak Ridge coach Patrick Friga said about the early lead. "They know we can hold them."

Not that Oak Ridge needed its defense for most of the game.

"No we didn't, and that's good," Friga said.

Senior starter Brett Thomas pitched a perfect five innings in his team's 11-0 road victory.

Thomas, who will play baseball at the University of Missouri next season, struck out 13 of the 15 batters he faced. He fielded a weak grounder back to the mound for the second out of the second inning and required the help of a defender -- freshman shortstop Kelby Brown -- to get the final out of the game.

"I just tried to throw strikes," Thomas said. "It's as simple as that. The first outing you don't want to try anything fancy -- just go out there and pump it in the zone and make them swing it. They haven't seen anything live really all year, so I figured fastballs would be good and then maybe rely on the curveball later."

Thomas threw a first-pitch ball to the first four batters he faced before coming back to strike out each batter -- two swinging, two looking.

"He just threw what we could for strikes and then found it a little bit later," Friga said. "He's a gamer. He knows what he needs to work on and knows what he can get away with."

Oak Ridge, which lost to Delta twice last season, improved to 2-0 this season while the Bobcats dropped to 0-1.

"I felt like we hit backwards," Delta coach Justin Simpher said. "We'd take good pitches and he would throw one and then we'd swing at a bad one. So maybe our approach wasn't right, but he also threw strikes and was going to make us hit and we didn't. He was ready to come in and throw the ball more so than maybe we were to swing at it."

Senior Chase Crowden started for Delta. He gave up just one earned run in his four innings of work before being replaced because of his pitch count.

"I thought there toward the end he started to lose a little control but not bad," Simpher said. "I saw a lot of good things and some things we've got to work on."

After scoring three times in the opening inning, Oak Ridge added a run in the third and fourth before batting around in the fifth inning for six runs.

"Our batters have been good this year," Thomas said. "We've got a strong lineup. Lot of young guys, but they're coming through right now and any time you can jump on a team early, it's always easy to go out and pitch with a lead."

Thomas was 4 for 4 with three RBIs at the plate. Center fielder Jacob Light and designated hitter Kyle Rohde both added RBI singles for the Blue Jays.

"The last two years in the playoffs our hitting's let us down," Thomas said. "I think we've got like three combined hits in our last two [quarterfinal] games or something terrible like that. No runs."

Oak Ridge, which has scored 25 runs in its first two games this season, has fallen one win shy of the final four the past two seasons.

"Offense I think is the main factor -- we've got the defense and the pitching," Thomas said. "We really need to work on our offense, and we scored like 20-something runs the first couple games, so that's as good as you can be."

Wednesday's game was the first played on Delta's new field, which features a grass infield. It is located across the street from the high school and behind the school district's new elementary school. The Bobcats used to play a few miles away on a small field next to the old elementary school.

"It's one of the nicer fields now," Simpher said. "It was done and done right, that's for sure."

Oak Rigde 301 16 -- 11 10 0

Delta 000 00 -- 0 0 5

WP -- Brett Thomas (1-0). LP -- Chase Crowden (0-1). Multiple hits: Thomas 4-4, Jake LeGrand 2-3. Records -- Oak Ridge 2-0, Delta 0-1.