SENECA — A three-run home run in the top of the sixth inning by Woodmont High School relief pitcher Will Taylor powered the Wildcats past the Bobcats in Seneca Tuesday night 10-7.

Woodmont got on the board first with a run in the second inning. The Wildcats manufactured the run thanks to a walk, an error and a single.

Then the Bobcat bats caught fire – scoring three runs in the bottom half of the second inning. Adam Lacey led off with a double, Matt Crowe followed with an RBI single, Chase Beebe drove him in with a double and the Bobcats led 3-1 after two innings.

Seneca scored two more runs in the third on singles by Tripp Ross, Matt Crowe and Kyle Edwards. Tyler Cannon drove in two runs with a double to extend the Bobcat lead to 5-1.

The Bobcats added another run in the fifth when Beebe singled and was driven in by Jacob Jalbert’s double, and Seneca led 6-1 heading into the top of the sixth inning.

But Woodmont warmed up as the cool night air moved across the Upstate, and the Wildcats scored six in the top of the sixth inning. The biggest hit came off the bat of Taylor, who blasted a three-run home run to right field off Seneca relief pitcher Austin Terry.

The Wildcats got three more in the top of the seventh inning and the Bobcats could only muster one run in their final at-bats, falling 10-7.

“We’ve struggled here for the last few years on not having the ability to make comebacks and this year that has been a focal point of ours,” Woodmont head coach Randy Christmas said. “Will Taylor came in as both a pitcher and a hitter and did a great job for us. We’ve developed a philosophy that we got from LSU concerning holding the rope. We adopted that this year and they’ve done a good job. We lost two games coming into this game and we told them not to let go of the rope, play hard from first pitch to last pitch, and they did.”

The late-inning loss was much harder for the Bobcats, especially considering some questionable calls at the plate that gave Woodmont hitters a few more chances.

“The kids played hard and I told them that I was proud of their effort, but it’s hard to lose like this,” Seneca head coach Andy Bay said. “If we had given them those runs in the last two innings I’d really be upset, but sometimes the other team hits where you’re not and you have to give Woodmont a lot of credit those last two innings – they had the at-bats that they needed and got it done.”

The loss drops the Seneca to 7-3 overall and 2-1 in the Western AAA, while Woodmont improves to 9-2 overall and 3-0 in the Western AAA Region.

Woodmont 10 – Seneca 7

WHS 010 006 3 — 10 10 1

SHS 032 010 1 — 7 12 3

Pitching

IP H ER K BB

W—Taylor 4.1 5 1 3 1

L—Terry 2.0 5 7 3 0

Hitting

W—Lesson, 2-4; Lester, 2-4; Taylor, 1-3, HR, 4 RBI

S—Crowe, 3-4, RBI; Lacey, 2-4, 2B; Cannon, 2-3, 2B, 3RBI