Christman, the University of South Carolina signee from Sumter High School, watched those two home runs sail out of American Legion Field to put his team behind by four runs Wednesday afternoon and, yet, shut out Spartanburg the rest of the way in a 7-4 victory.

“I went to Plan B,” he said.

To get Sumter into this eight-team party, Christman won the opener and the clincher of a second-round series last week, throwing 15 innings combined and striking out 33 batters. He didn’t completely bounce back from Friday’s outing, however, and kept trying to find the right socket for his electric stuff.

“My arm was kind of dead at the start,” he said.

“The velocity wasn’t there, so you have to go back to basics and just hit spots.”

Spartanburg slugger Ross Hanna crushed a towering three-run homer deep into the trees in the first inning for a 3-0 lead, and Brian Poteat belted a solo shot to that forest in the second inning.

“I’m not used to that,” Christman said.

Post 28 managed just five scattered singles the rest of the way and Christman lasted into the ninth.

“He really settled in,” Hanna said. “What do you do?”

Sloan Gilliam started on the mound for Post 28 and allowed six runs on seven hits in 6 2/3 innings. The Dorman High School graduate and Spartanburg Methodist signee as a position player allowed a game-tying, three-run homer by eighth-place hitter Samuel Key in the fourth inning.

Tony Micklon hit solo shot in the sixth to give Post 15 the lead. Sumter tacked on insurance runs with bunts, including a squeeze in the eighth after a walk and a stolen base.

“They beat us today. You have to give them credit,” Spartanburg first-year head coach Matthew West said. “But we came to play. I was proud of that.”

Spartanburg, playing in its first state tournament since winning the second of back-to-back titles in 2004, faces elimination 1 p.m. Thursday against Richland. Post 28 will use its own ace, Clemson signee David Haselden from Spartanburg High School, also on four days’ rest.

“We’re not ready to go home,” West said. “We’re here to win a state championship.”

Richland is the defending champ that beat Spartanburg in this year’s second round, forcing Post 28, winner of League VI, to rise from the bottom seed of a play-in event against rivals Inman and Gaffney.

“We’re out to prove that we’re better than a play-in team,” West said. “We’ve seen these (Richland) guys before. We know what they have. We feel like we owe them. That’s the plan.”

Hanna had the same sentiment. “They have a good team,” he said. “But we’re better.”

AMERICAN LEGION STATE TOURNAMENT
American Legion Field, Florence  (double-elimination)
Wednesday’s games
Sumter 7, Spartanburg 4
Goose Creek 7, Richland 5
Irmo 14, Lake City 6
Florence 13, Greenwood 11
Today’s games
9:30 a.m. — Lake City vs. Greenwood
1 p.m. — Spartanburg vs. Richland
4:30 p.m. — Sumter vs. Goose Creek
8 p.m. — Irmo vs. Florence

Spartanburg (18-6) took a 3-0 lead after two innings thanks to two-out RBI hits by Luke Danielewicz in the first and Andrew Patterson in the second.

Gaffney starting pitcher Jason Biershenk seemed to settle down over the next two innings, striking out the side in the third, and retiring Spartanburg in order in the fourth.

But Gaffney (16-8) never had more than one base runner in an inning and never reached second base off Haselden, who threw just 72 pitches in six scoreless innings of three-hit ball.

“We put the bat on the ball, we just couldn’t find a hole,” said Bubba Wright, who had two of Gaffney’s three hits.

“Sometimes offense has to take care of the pitching and vice versa, and today offense didn’t do anything to support the pitching,” Gaffney coach Jeff Osment said.

In the fifth inning, Biershenk made three pitches with two outs which appeared might get him out of the inning: An apparent third strike to Ross Hanna that was called a ball, a bloop hit by Danielewicz over first base that was lost in the sun, and an infield single by Aaron Story.

After a bases-loaded walk to Kyle Worthy drove in a run for a 5-0 Spartanburg lead, Brian Poteat (who had just missed a home run when he doubled off the wall in the second inning) smashed a grand slam over the 391-foot sign in left-center field.

“I was seeing the ball good this afternoon. It seemed like every ball I swung at was a line drive,” Poteat said. “When you got pitching like (Haselden) throwing six scoreless, there’s really not much to worry about.”

“I felt like I was pitching smarter,” Haselden said. “I didn’t really have a lot of velocity, but my arm felt fine and I was locating the ball real well and doing that is enough to get by.”

Story followed Poteat’s slam in the fifth with one of his own in the sixth, putting the game on ice.

Spartanburg, which won the regular-season league title for the second straight year, was relegated to the No. 3 seed in this weekend’s play-in after a complicated tiebreak system that gave Gaffney the top spot, followed by Inman.

And Spartanburg didn’t hide the fact that it was not happy about being seeded lower than two teams they had beaten 3-1 each in the regular season.

“Basically we felt like the way legion was set up we earned a one seed and it didn’t earn us anything apparently,” Spartanburg coach Matthew West said.

“It’s not right,” Spartanburg’s Dee Jones said. “ But when you’re not in that position of power, you have to work even harder.”

Spartanburg responded like you might think an angry baseball team would, outscoring Inman and Gaffney by a combined 28-2 margin, winning both games on the road.

Spartanburg advances to play Sumter, the No. 1 seed from the lower state, in the American Legion state tournament on Wednesday in Florence.

The trip marks the first time Spartanburg will play for the state title since winning it back-to-back in 2003 and 2004.

“We’re just going to come out and play,” West said. “We did what we had to do here. All we’re focused on right now is Sumter and taking care of business down there.”

“We’re a lot better than our seeding indicates right now,” Haselden said.

Gaffney, on the other hand, saw its four-year streak of making the tournament snapped with the loss.

“We only lose two players off this team, so hopefully we bring everybody back with a few new guys and will be a little bit better than we were this year,” Osment said.

Post 28 took the series 3-1 and will advance to the second round against the winner of the Richland/Easley series. The second round will begin Monday.

Spartanburg (15-3) hit the ball and hit it hard in the second inning. Luke Danielewicz led off with a line-drive homer that carried just over the left-field wall. Two batters later, Joseph Metz hit his first home run to right to make it 3-0.

Dee Jones singled and Andrew Patterson and Sloan Gilliam walked to load the bases. Ross Hanna, Spartanburg’s behemoth first baseman, stepped to the plate and crushed a pitch over the left-field fence and deep into the hardwood trees beyond The Winthrop Ballpark. The grand slam gave Spartanburg a 7-0 lead.

Hanna will be transferring from Erskine to Spartanburg Methodist in the fall. He said he wasn’t looking for any particular pitch.

“I’ve been in a slump lately. I was just looking for something to hit,” Hanna said. “It was a hanging curve.”

Rock Hill went to work in the bottom of the inning to start chipping away at the lead. Post 34 scored on a two-out, two-run single by Brantley Rumford in the second.

Catcher Taylor Wallace doubled off the left field fence to score starting pitcher Evan Andert in the third inning. Two batters later, Josh Bowers brought Wallace in to make it 7-4 Spartanburg.

In the fourth inning, Rock Hill (9-11) went to the small ball. Ryan Cox led off with a walk. Rumford set down a near-perfect bunt fielded by Post 28 pitcher Cory Wines. Wines’ throw to first was wide of Hanna’s reach. Cox came all the way around to score and Rumford went to second on the error.

Michael Hill followed with a bunt single to move Rumford to third. Rumford later scored on a passed ball.

In the fifth, Rock Hill plated two more runs off two hit batsmen and another throwing error by Wines.

Rock Hill 8, Spartanburg 7.

Post 34 coach Steve Knight said his staff works with the team on bunting from the first day of practice.

“Our staff always preaches it. But they had to execute it. We asked the guys to bunt and they did it,” Knight said between hugs from each of his players as they gathered in center field following the game.

“I guarantee when it was 8-7, Spartanburg was feeling it. They have to be thinking now, ‘Whew, I don’t want to go through that again.’ We just marched, marched, marched to get back in the game.”

Alex Dozier got Spartanburg’s offense going again in the seventh. The speedy center fielder tripled off the wall in right-center to lead off. Three straight walks forced Dozier home with the tying run, 8-8. The walks also ended the night on the mound for Andert.

Andert pitched through the big second inning. He settled down after allowing three home runs. The tall right-hander gave up just one hit over the next 4 1/3 innings until Spartanburg caught up with him again in the seventh. He gave up seven hits and eight walks in six innings.

Logan Cribb came on in relief. Danielewicz greeted him with a two-run single. Kyle Worthy added a run-scoring double and Brian Poteat drove in two more with a single as Spartanburg went back up 13-8.

Spartanburg coach Matthew West was relieved to come out with the win.

“We almost threw it away. We have to work on (fielding) bunts,” West said. “We knew we were hitting the ball well after the second inning. We hadn’t done that yet in this series.”

Jones started on the mound for Spartanburg but only threw three innings. Wines and Ryan Traylor pitched the final six innings and limited Rock Hill to just three hits. Traylor earned the win, pitching three shutout innings, allowing two hits with two strikeouts.

THREE TEAMS IN: Spartanburg, Gaffney and Inman will represent League VI in the playoffs this year.

The playoffs begin July 14.

Post 28 earned the No. 1 seed as the league champion. This marks the second straight year Spartanburg has won the title.

Gaffney is the No. 2 seed, while Inman is the No. 3 seed.

Inman (8-6) will travel to face League V champion Chester in the first round in a best-of-five series.

Spartanburg and Gaffney are still awaiting their opponents.

Inman coach Steve Skinner says after beating both Post 28 and Post 109 in consecutive games that his team has a legitimate shot at a championship.

"It just showed that we can beat anybody in our league on any given night," he said. "Maybe we're starting to gel at the right time."

GREER ENDS EARLY: Greer opted to end the season before it was officially over.

Post 115, eliminated from playoff contention, finished the season 1-11.

Greer athletic director Harold Brown says his team will return to League VI despite rumors saying otherwise.

"There isn't a problem with that," Brown said. "We'll be back on our legion field next year, and we'll be stronger."