By John Henson
Sports Writer

With an offense held to five runs or less in 10 of their first 13 games this season, Bell County coach Jeff Sziksai knows the Bobcats have to be more productive with the bats to make a postseason run. They made a move in that direction Monday after finding themselves in an all too familiar position at Harlan County as they were held hitless through three innings and limited to one run through four.
The Bobcats were able to string together three clutch two-out hits on line drives by Cooper Brock, Jackson Walters and Joseph Brigmon as part of a five-run fifth inning on the way to a 7-1 victory.
“We’ve been struggling a little bit offensively all year. It was good to see us string some hard-hit balls together, and we did some two-out damage in that inning,” Sziksai said.
Bell County junior right-hander Blake Burnett was not his dominant self but worked out of trouble in each of the first four innings. He held Harlan County scoreless through 4 1/3 innings even though the Bears had runners in scoring position in each of the first four innings. Burnett finished with five strikeouts and four walks while giving up four hits. Brayden Carroll allowed one run on one hit with one strikeout in 1 1/3 innings. Alex Creech allowed one hit with one strikeout in 1 1/3 innings.
“Blake didn’t have his best stuff tonight, but he battled through it,” Sziksai. “Brayden and Alex came in behind him and threw enough strikes. They had some traffic the first couple of innings and we worked through with some good defense and a couple of double plays. It was good to show our defense show up.”
“We’ve to find ways to score runs when we have them in scoring position, especially with less than two outs. We had eight runners left on base, four in scoring position, in the first four innings. We have to find a way to score some of those runs,” Harlan County coach Scotty Bailey said.
Jesse Gilbert pitched a complete game for Harlan County, giving up seven runs on eight hits with one strikeout and one walk.
“Jesse threw a great game,” Bailey said. “You have to give him some help early when we can, and we just weren’t able to do that. If we get some runs early, I think it’s a different ball game. Gibby really kept them off balance. I think he got tired a little, but he threw great. We made some good plays defensively as well. We just got to put it all together, and we’ll be just fine. We’ve got a lot of young guys who are still finding their footing, but I’m proud of this team. We are getting better each game.”
Walters, Brigmon and Hunter Fuson led the 7-7 Bobcats with one double and one single each. Creech and Ayden Smith had one single each.
Gunner Burkhart led the Harlan County offense with a double and single. Alex Creech, Aiden Craig, Gilbert and Brayden Morris had one single each for the 4-8 Bears.
The two teams play again on Tuesday at Log Mountain.
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Bell County 000 150 0 — 7. 8. 0
Harlan County 000 001 0 — 1. 6. 1
Burnett, Carroll (5), Creech (6) and Brigmon; Gilbert and Smith. WP — Burnett. LP — Gilbert (1-1).