The Mint Hill Junior American Legion baseball team wins the rubber game over McDowell County 3-1 behind the strong right arm of Connor Randall who pitched a complete game for the home team. The team will now advance to the 3rd round of the playoffs against an opponent to be named.

Mint Hill scored first when lead-off hitter from Butler High School, Travis Ziefert hit a base hit, Alwin Duran promptly followed with a double jumping on a first pitch fast ball scoring the speedy Ziefert, then Andy Duran both brothers from Queens Grant High School would deliver a base hit to center field driving in the second run giving the home club an early 2-0 lead.

In the second inning, McDowell County would score their only run off of Randall on a couple of hits and a sacrifice fly ball. Randall escaped his only jam of the ball game by striking out a batter freezing him on a nice breaking pitch to end the threat.

In the fourth inning, Mint Hill would score an insurance run when Hayden Dark led-off with a base hit, Chris Hoefling put down a nice bunt advancing the runner to second base. On a wild pitch to Braian Baez the runner moved to third, Baez promptly hit a hard ground ball toward the second base hole, the shortstop made a nice play to nip Baez at first base. However, the lead-off batter would score easily from third for the 3-1 advantage.

Meanwhile, Randall had complete control of the game pitching seven full innings, allowing only four hits, hit one batter, had accumulated 7 strikeouts, while giving up just one earned run in a solid outing for Mint Hill.

Team Game 3 –     1   2   3   4   5   6   7   R   H   E

McDowell County   0   1   0   0   0   0   0   1   4   0

Mint Hill  4059       2   0   0   1   0   0   X   3   5   0