For the second consecutive year, Kershaw County Post 17 played in and won the Florence Post 1 tournament championship. And, for the second time in as many seasons, KC defeated the hosts for the tourney title.

Sunday night, the 17ers used a six-run top of the second to grab a 6-0 lead and cruised to an 8-2 win over Florence to take home the championship trophy.

Blythewood High grad and Limestone signee Alex Canino worked the first 6.2 innings, allowing two runs on five hits with a strikeout to get his first win with his new team.

Da’Avion Sumpter blasted a three-run home run to left center in a six-run second frame to help pace a seven-hit P-17 offensive attack at Florence Legion Field.

Post 17 earned a berth in the championship game after Heath Stokes fired a complete game two-hitter in Saturday’s 5-0 win over the Sumter P-15s.

Stokes, a rising senior at Lugoff-Elgin, threw just 76 pitches in his mound gem in which he fanned three batters.

After scoring an unearned run in the first, KC used RBI singles from Sawyer Reeves and Wynston Dyer in the third inning to take a 3-0 lead before adding a pair in the sixth on Dyer’s sacrifice fly to right which was followed by an RBI single off the bat of Dalton Reeves.

Earlier in the day on Saturday, the locals received a combined three-hitter from Zack Reynolds and Sam Ferguson in a 5-0 win over Horry County. 

Reynolds, a rising junior at L-E, went the first four innings, allowing two hits while fanning give batters. Ferguson, a rising senior at Camden High, gave up one hit with four strikeouts in three full innings of relief work.

The winners scored solo runs in the fifrt, third, fourth, sixth and seventh innings to back the effort of their pitchers.

Brady White and Mason Cassady each had two-hit games for KC with White driving in a run.

In last Friday’s tournament opener at American Legion Park, Post 17 used back-to-back solo home runs from John Lanier and Khyree Miller to throttle visiting Manning-Santee, 13-3, in a game stopped in the bottom of the fifth by the 10-run rule.

Justin Dorton went the full five frames and scattered five hits with seven strikeouts.

In addition to the solo blasts in the fourth inning, Jake Laffin had a three-hit night while Sumpter added two singles.

“Our guys knew that we’re a pretty good team, but they also know we have to show up every day,” Carmon said of the Florence tourney. “Winning the tournament ... they expected it, but they did not expect it to be given to them. That’s what I was proud of them for last weekend.”

In Tuesday’s League III opener at Aiken, KC scored two times in both the third and fourth innings and tacked on three more in the seventh to take home a 7-3 win.

Reynolds went the first 4.2 innings to get the win with Jake Tanner coming on in relief. Reynolds gave up four hits with a strikeout while Tanner worked 2.1 innings of three-hit baseball with three punch outs.

Bradwin Salmond, J.C. LeGrand and Dyer each had two-hit nights with Sumpter driving in two runs in the seventh with a double.