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SEVIERVILLE – Sevier County pitcher Andrew Moore had a message for Morristown West on Tuesday evening following the Smoky Bears 9-5 win over the Trojans.

“Get off my (expletive) field,” Moore yelled as he flashed his jersey towards the West dugout.

That message accurately depicted the emotion surrounding Tuesday night’s contest, with West breaking out to a 5-0 lead before Sevier County scored nine unanswered to take the victory.

With the loss, West fell to 4-4 in district play.

“Every pitch in every inning in every game is a learning lesson for us,” West coach Justin Pickett said. “We learn something every day. For us, we’re really buying in but whenever we’re put in an adverse situation, we have to go to work. We have to set the tone and trust our preparation and keep it simple.”

The game wasn’t without controversy. In the fourth inning, with West leading 5-0, Sevier County loaded the bases with nobody out. The Smoky Bears hit an RBI single to keep the bases loaded and make it 5-1 but the next batter hit a grounder to Paxton Seal at third. Seal fired the ball to Tayshawn Griffin at home for the force at the plate, who then fired the ball to Riley Short at first for a double play.

However, the runner on third who was forced out at home continued to the plate and Short fired the ball back to Griffin. Griffin tagged out that runner for what the Trojans believed was a triple play. West rolled the ball to the mound and headed off the field before scrambling back towards the field as the Sevier County runner, who started the play on second, continued to run and slid in safely at the plate.

Chaos ensued with the umpires initially calling it a triple play. A Sevier County coach argued the call for multiple minutes before the umpires reversed their decision, ruling it was a double play and that the umpire called time before the Sevier County runner took off for home. That nullified the Sevier County run but put runners back on second and third with two outs.

With the very next pitch, Sevier County laced a ball into center to score two runs and make it a 5-3 game.

The Smoky Bears would go on to score three runs in the fifth to take the lead and then added three more runs in the sixth to give themselves some insurance.

Cody Blair got the start on the mound for the Trojans and threw four innings. Blair allowed four runs on six hits while striking out two.

“I think he came out here and really set the tone for us,” Pickett said. “He threw strikes and attacked the hitters. It’s just that third time through, we decided to give them a different look so they wouldn’t get comfortable.”

Landyn Spencer, Bryson Shepard and Jordan Watson combined to throw the fifth and six innings for the Trojans.

At the plate, Seal led the way as he reached base three times. Along with Seal, Griffin reached base twice and had three RBIs while Shepard and Seal both drove in the other runs.

It was a quiet start to the game as both teams failed to score in the first two innings. However, in the third, West rallied as Watson led off with a single and Riley Short walked with one out. That brought up Seal who drove in a run on an error by the first baseman to make it 1-0.

Following the error, Blair walked to load the bases for Griffin. With two strikes on him, Griffin went the other way as he smacked a line drive down the first base line to score all three runs. Griffin made it to third on the play and then scored as Shepard roped an RBI single with two outs to make it 5-0.

“We had a gameplan and came here and executed,” Pickett said about the third inning. “We saw some pitches and made him (Brady Scott) work and didn’t chase. We hit balls hard and tried to get them off the mound with some drag and push bunts. We were able to capitalize on that ball down the line. The thing that hurt though was that we weren’t able to scrap a few more after that. If we do that, it might have been a different ballgame.”

Following that third inning for West, they totalled just two more hits, with both coming in the seventh. Meanwhile, Sevier County scored nine runs to take the win.

Morristown West has three more games this week, all non-district contests. The Trojans will travel to Halls on Thursday for a 6 p.m. game before hosting Union County on Friday and Hardin Valley on Saturday.

“We’re just going to continue to try and play good baseball and clean up the little things and keep working,” Pickett said. “We’re just going to try and take things one game at a time.”