Sports Editor

ajohnson@thomastontimes.com

The Diamond Knights of Upson-Lee Middle School improved their record to 2-3 on the road Thursday with a 15-2 smashing of Byron.

UL wasted no time establishing the first lead of the game. Devon Nicholson walked with one out in the top of the first and was followed by a Tyler Royal single. Both runs would come in to score and the Knights were spotted two runs.

Byron tied the game in the bottom of the inning in the same fashion, but starting pitcher Drew Watkins settled into cruise control. After giving up the two runs Watkins struck out 16 batters while allowing no runs. The nearly flawless performance gave up only two hits and paralyzed any attempted offensive by Byron.

After regaining the lead with a run in the third inning, Upson-Lee rallied for four runs in the fifth on hits from Tyler Royal, Dylan Nelson and Jeremiah Rider. Devan Nicholson and Joey Desnoyer each stole a base in the inning.

Byron fell apart in the seventh inning and allowed eight more runs by committing three errors and allowing two hits by K.J. Adams and one hit each from Drew Watkins, Devan Nicholason, Tyler Royal, and Dominic Mathis. Austin Matson, Tyler Helms and Storm Roland reached on errors as Upson-Lee ran away with the 15-2 win.

Last Tuesday the Knights fell to Gray Station by a score of 9-3. Upson-Lee scored all three of its runs in the second inning on hits from Storm Roland and Tyler Royal while Roland stole two bases and Cole Conner, Dylan Nelson and K.J. Adams stole one base each.

After that Upson-Lee batters were struck out 10 times and scored no runs. Gray Station took the lead in the fourth inning with four runs to go up 7-3 and never looked back.

The ULMS Knights will look for another win today when they host Byron at the Municipal Field at 4:30. They will be on the road at Monroe tomorrow.