By TYLER HENRY
Lead Sportswriter - Salina Post
Southeast of Saline’s baseball team continued its dominant run on Thursday capping off a doubleheader sweep of Smoky Valley to extend the win streak to four games.
The Trojans collected run-rule-shortened victories of 18-3 and 22-7 to move to 4-2 on the year, while the Vikings stumbled out of the gates at 0-2.
Southeast rattled off a total of 22 hits between the two games, and wreaked havoc on the basepaths, capitalizing on a staggering 16 errors committed by Smoky Valley.
The Vikings scratched two runs across to take a 2-0 lead in the top of the first, but the Trojans wasted no time taking those runs back with interest, striking for 12 in the home half of the frame.
From there, Southeast ran away with things and never looked back, scoring three runs in the bottom of the third to end the game by mercy rule 18-3.
All nine bats in the lineup recorded a hit, with three Trojans recording a multi-RBI game, anchored by Killian Vaughan, who drove in three of Southeast’s 18 runs.
Vaughan also tossed all three innings on the hill, allowing just one earned run on four hits, and recording three strikeouts to just one walk.
In the second game of the series, the Trojans picked up right where they left off, this time surpassing the mercy rule threshold with a ten-run fourth inning to bring the game to an early end 22-7.
Four different Trojans would record multi-hit games the second time around, but it was Cole Gilpin’s 3-3 day at the plate with four RBI and two walks that stood out among the rest in another blowout victory.
This time, SES used three different arms, as Treyton Olson, Ian Nickelson, and Lyrick Lilley combined to finish four innings of work with Olson recording all six Southeast strikeouts.
The Trojans will be back in action next Tuesday as SES makes the long trek to Belleville for a doubleheader with Republic County.