BLADENBORO — After throwing a three-hitter for eight innings, West Bladen’s Garrett Dunham stepped to the plate in the bottom of the eighth with the chance to win the game.

A sharp swing put a ball in play just inches inside the third-base line for a single, scoring the winning run as the Knights beat Fairmont 2-1 in extra innings Tuesday.

“Tip your hat to that kid; he pitched a complete game, eight innings, and then comes in and gets the game-winning RBI base hit,” Fairmont coach Kelly Chavis said. “We have nothing to hold our heads about; that’s what I told them, yeah we lost the ballgame, but that’s the type of baseball game you want to be in every game.”

The game was nip-and-tuck throughout, well pitched by both sides, spending about an hour and a half knotted at 1-1 all the way into extra innings before the Knights’ breakthrough.

“The question I asked them was … as a player, did you take any plays off?” Kelly Chavis said. “If you didn’t, we’ve got nothing to be ashamed of. That was a good high school baseball game. You go eight innings, every pitcher — they had one, we had two — that was put on the mound was throwing strikes, and they were doing their jobs.”

Dunham allowed one run on three hits with three walks and eight strikeouts as he went the distance for West Bladen (8-10, 4-3 Southeastern Athletic Conference).

“He threw strikes,” Kelly Chavis said. “When he wanted to throw strikes, when he needed to make a pitch, he made a pitch. There was a couple of at bats the he kind of struggled a little bit with his command, but then he’d get right back in it. There were several innings where he had less than 10 pitches in the inning. You tip your hat to him because he’s filling it up, but at the same time we didn’t do what we should do and make the adjustments to work him up a little more in his pitch count.”

Parker Chavis started for Fairmont (8-11, 4-3 Southeastern), allowing one unearned run on four hits with three walks and three strikeouts. Kenley Callahan allowed one unearned run on one hit in 1 1/3 innings of relief for Fairmont.

West Bladen stranded the bases loaded after three walks — one of which was intentional — in the bottom of the seventh, sending the game to extra innings. After Fairmont went down in order in the top of the eighth, West Bladen’s Allister Russ reached on an error to start the bottom half. He was sacrificed to second, and two more walks loaded the bases for Dunham before his one-out game-winning single.

Dunham was the only player on either team with multiple hits in the game, which saw only eight combined hits.

West Bladen took a 1-0 lead in the second when Josh Dawson reached on a walk and came around to score on a throwing error.

Fairmont tied the game in the fourth; Nehemiah Chavis led off with a single and came home on an RBI single by Callahan.

Fairmont’s best run-scoring chance in the late innings came in the fifth after Dunham walked back-to-back hitters. Parker Chavis put down a bunt trying to move the runners over, but West Bladen got the out at third instead of first base; a groundout ended the inning.

“We didn’t do what we were coached to do, and that could’ve been the difference in the ballgame,” Kelly Chavis said. “If we make that play, we may win 2-1 in regulation.”

Tuesday’s game opened a two-game conference series between the teams; West Bladen’s win pulls the Knights even with Fairmont in a tie for second place in the Southeastern, making the second game of the series on Friday significant for both teams.

“We’ve just got to come prepared to play,” Kelly Chavis said. “I pretty much know who we’re going to face; he’s going to be another hard thrower, he’s going to throw strikes. We’ve just got to come in and execute. We’ve got to do a job of situational hitting; we’ve got to do a better job of situational bunting. And if we can do that, we’ll be OK.”