After beating Creek Wood 6-3 earlier in the day, the Marshall County Dusters improved to 2-0 in pool play at the Southern Athletic Fields Invitational when they thumped the Columbia Cubs 11-2 in five innings at Columbia Central High School.

The Dusters buried the Cubs early and built an 11-0 lead through the first three and a half innings of play before coasting to the nine-run victory.

11-hit game

Bolstered by a six-run second inning, Marshall County pounded out 11 hits against three Columbia pitchers to go along with four walks and four Cub errors.

Chandler Harmon (1 RBI) and Lane Whitesell tallied to hits apiece to lead the Dusters offensive attack. Connor Bush (2 RBI), Jay Murphy (2 RBI), Cameron Isley (2 RBI), Dunn Crowder (1 RBI), Ryan McDaniel, Zack Kirby, and Bubba Houghton each had one hit for Marshall County as well.

Duster starting pitcher Matt Sharp turned in a strong effort on the mound and notched seven strikeouts in five innings of work while limiting Columbia to four hits and two walks en route to picking up the win.

"I'm real pleased with how the young guys played today. They still have some things to work on and need to improve their fundamentals, but I'm tickled to death with how they played," said Marshall County coach Mike Reese. "We have a few veterans on the team to help them out too. A lot of teams don't let their seniors play with them during the summer, but we want to pay them back for giving us four years."

Bats come alive

The Dusters came up empty in the first inning, but got their bats going in the top of the second and pushed across six runs in the frame to seize a 6-0 lead. After loading the bases with no outs on singles by McDaniel, Harmon, and Kirby, McDaniel scored on a Cub error while Murphy reached first on the play. Isley then plated Harmon and courtesy runner Trent Wiles with a two-run single before Murphy came home on a RBI infield single by Bush to make it 4-0. Following a walk by Whitesell, Isley scored on another Columbia error before Bush raced home on a wild pitch.

Marshall County continued to pad their lead in the top of the third and crossed home plate three times in the inning with the help of two walks, two Cub errors, and Crowder RBI single to open up a 9-0 advantage..

The Dusters hung up another crooked number in the fourth inning and tacked on two more runs on the strength of a Houghton single, a wild pitch, a RBI single by Harmon, a Kirby walk, and a RBI single by Murphy to forge an 11-0 lead.

In the bottom of the fifth, Columbia scored two runs on two hits and an error to trim the deficit to 11-2 with two outs before Sharp struck out the next Cub batter to keep the mercy rule in effect.