When Bre Cuff comes to the plate, it’s almost a given that everyone in the stadium is thinking the same thing. Cuff has become Landrum’s most dangerous home run hitter and that brings some pressure along with it.
It’s not always going to take a homer and that was proven on Wednesday night.
On May 2, Cuff came up with the bases loaded in a tied ball game but it wasn’t a homer that put the Cardinals over the top. The senior hit a sacrifice fly to right field that scored the go-ahead run in the bottom of the sixth inning en route to a 7-4 victory over McBee to clinch the district championship.
Cardinal Head Coach Tucker Hamrick understands that pressure and wants to alleviate some of it from his star.
“All we want (Bre) to do is hit base hits,” he said. “You never know what type of hit it’s going to take (to score runs).”
Cuff’s sacrifice fly put the Cardinals up 5-4. Sydnie Brown followed Cuff to the plate and took care of the rest. Brown hit a bases-clearing double to give the Cardinals a 7-4 lead.
“I had everybody behind me,” Brown said. “They told me to just go up there and relax.”
Senior pitcher Jordan Farmer did the rest in the top half of the seventh inning.
Farmer retired the first two Panther batters on three pitches. The third hitter, Jordan Crowley, hit an 0-2 pitch for a single. Farmer came back and got Haley Wellmon to ground out to second base. Wellmon was the leading hitter for the Panthers. The first baseman hit a homer in the fourth inning and drove in three of the four Panther runs.
The Cardinals will play at Abbeville at 7 p.m. on Friday night in the opening game of the Upper State finals. Abbeville beat Landrum in the Upper State finals last season, so the Cardinals are looking to avenge that loss.
To do that, the Cardinals can only focus on one thing, Hamrick said.
“We’ve got to play our game,” he said. “We have to come out and be focused on what we do as a team.”