Maverick Williamson launched three home runs and notched eight RBIs en route to Neosho County’s 18-8, runrule win over the Butler Grizzlies on Tuesday.
Williamson, a utility star for the Panthers, was 4-for-5 at the dish against Butler. Williamson has become the most dangerous bat for Neosho County, posting a .453 average and 1.386 OPS with five homers on the year. Williamson also made three appearances on the mound, posting a 2.45 ERA and a 1.02 WHIP over 14.2 innings.
“He still has more,” Neosho County head coach Steve Murry said. “He’s learning on the daily and gets better. He learns from thousands of pictures of his swing. He’s a student of the game. That’s huge when you have a resource like that. Maverick takes advantage of that and it’s paying off for him.”
Butler took the early lead on Tuesday as Neosho County’s four errors allowed the Grizzlies to take a 7-5 edge through four frames.
“Defense has been a struggle for us the last few games and we thought that’d be a strength,” Murry said. “It just hasn’t been good for us. That’s something we can improve on.”
The Panthers plated seven runs in the bottom of the fifth inning and six more in the bottom of the seventh to claim control of the affair.
“Our hitting with runners in scoring position was great for us, today,” Murry said. “We were 7-for-13.”
Trey Sommer earned the win on the hill in relief for Neosho County, tossing two frames of scoreless, one-hit ball.
“He threw great,” Murry said. “He just stepped up. He’s a reliever that we want to count on. We need strikes all day. If he can be consistent for us, that’d be great.”
Tuesday’s win came after the Panthers dropped three games of four to Cowley in Neosho County’s second KJCCC series of the year.
“Cowley is really good, but we should’ve won three of the four,” Murry said. “We blew an 8-2 lead in one game and our relief pitching was just terrible. We lost the last game and we had a lead in that one. Winning one of four looks OK. But we played better than that.”
Tuesday’s win improved Neosho County’s record to 10-6 overall.
Up next
Neosho County began its next conference series against Kansas City Kansas on Thursday. The first two games were played in Chanute on Thursday with the final two moving north to Kansas City on Saturday.
“They’re going to be a really good team that’s well coached and plays great defense,” Murry said. “We just need to worry about what we do. If we do what we do well, we’ll be fine. We’ve knocked off two nationally ranked teams. But we’ve got a ways to go to get better.”
