By Greg Sullivan
Sports Editor

After some time off, the Diamond Pups' bats collected no dust, and the pitching wasn't bad either as the team cruised to an 11-1 defeat over Social Circle in Madison Friday afternoon.
The Pups got started early with a Dylan Peppers triple to right-center to score Stewart Spence. A Fred Williams sacrifice knocked Peppers home to put the Pups up 2-0.
The two first inning runs turned out to be all the Pups would need behind the pitching of Dylan Peppers, who picked up the win after four scoreless innings where he allowed just one hit. Carter Shultz closed things out in the fifth, and the run he allowed was unearned.
Pups coach Brian Cousins said he liked what he saw out of Peppers. "Dylan pitched well," he said of the one-hit performance.
For good measure, though, the Pup offense elected to tack on nine more insurance runs as the game went along. Adding three in the third inning, two in the fourth and five in the fifth as the Pups buried the Redskins. The game was called in the fifth due to the conference's run rule.
"We really excelled running the bases," Cousins said. "This put many runners in scoring position and we were able to pick them up throughout the game."
Picking up hits in the game for the Pups were Peppers with three and Williams, Dustin Taylor and Alex Harris who each had two hits apiece.
The win moved Morgan County's record up to an impressive 7-2. Tuesday's outcome with Youth determined whether the Pups would be regular season conference champs or a three-seed in the conference tournament.
The Morgan-Youth winner gets a bye to Saturday's conference tournament semi-finals to be held in Madison on Saturday. The loser will be forced to play a game on Wednesday afternoon to advance to Saturday action.
Regardless of the outcome, middle school baseball will take place this Saturday in Madison. There will be a 10 a.m. semi-final and another semi-final at 1 p.m. The winner of each of those games will clash in a 4 p.m. conference championship game.