Bowling Green catcher Brice Beglow tags Franklin Simpson right fielder Rylan Thomas out at home plate during the game on Tuesday, May 16, 2017, at Greg Shelton Field in Franklin. Franklin Simpson defeats Bowling Green, 2-1. (Matt Lunsford/photo@bgdailynews.com)

FRANKLIN – Franklin-Simpson has leaned on its pitching depth and solid defense all season. Even when the bats aren’t hot, the other necessities have remained a mainstay.

So far, it’s helped the Wildcats produce one of their best regular seasons in a few years. Ryan Dorris wasn’t throwing his best game, but it was good enough and Clay Spears made contact with the ball twice, which was equally good enough for Franklin-Simpson to edge Bowling Green 2-1 Tuesday afternoon in a battle between teams with the best two records in Region 4.

Spears brought in the go-ahead run on a two-out double to left field in the bottom of the sixth inning to give Franklin-Simpson (24-5) its fourth straight win.

“When I saw (the ball) come down, I was really happy because I knew it was the go-ahead run and with R.D. on the mound, I know we’re always in good shape,” Spears said. “We know we’re as good as anybody in the region. We’ve just got to come out and play hard and play with intensity. We know we’ve got a long way to go in the tournament.”

Spears also got the Wildcats on the board first with an RBI ground out to shortstop Joe Howard to score Jordan Jones for the 1-0 lead in the bottom of the fourth.

Bowling Green tied it in the top of the sixth when Logan Bowen sacrificed to shortstop Alex Gilbert to score Luke Brown.

Bowen, Tyler Stahl and Bryce Deglow had the only three hits for the Purples against Dorris, who earned the complete-game win and struck out three.

Entering Tuesday, Bowling Green (22-12) had won three straight games that included big offensive days in a 12-11 win over defending state champions St. Xavier and a 7-6 victory over Brentwood Academy (Tenn.), both on Saturday.

Purples coach Matt Myers said he’d put his team’s rigorous schedule as one of if not the toughest in the state and that fatigue is starting to show.

The coach isn’t concerned, however. Bowling Green ends the regular season against Apollo on Friday before opening the District 14 Tournament against the winner of Greenwood-Warren Central next Tuesday.

“It just shows us every day to show up,” Myers said. “There’s a lot of games where you don’t have to show up to win and you get a false sense and our guys today, you’ve got to play a good game to beat (Franklin-Simpson). We played hard, but we didn’t do what we needed to.

“I think sometimes when you play 36 games and in our district where you play three games a week, it looks like all the teams that come out of our district are a little beat up. I think it’s good to have some rest. Apollo has 20-plus wins coming into Friday. We’ll give them everything we’ve got and we’ll have them rested.”

Jackson Haga allowed four hits, struck out four and issued two walks in the loss. In limiting Franklin-Simpson to two runs, he held the Wildcats to their lowest offensive production since being shut out with two hits in a 2-0, eight-inning loss to Brentwood Academy on May 9.

Since then, Franklin-Simpson has live up to their seven-runs per game average this season with 10 against Barren County, 13 against Caldwell County and an 8-7 victory over Marshall County on Saturday.

To counter that, the Wildcats’ 2.6 runs allowed per game this season lead the region. Franklin-Simpson’s five losses so far are the fewest since 2009 and have come against just three teams: Brentwood Academy and Warren East and Logan County twice.

Dorris, Rylan Thomas, Zach Sliger and Donavan Alderson make up the majority of the Wildcats’ starting pitchers. Plus the emergence of sophomore Jacob Curtis and junior Jordan Jones have boosted the middle of the lineup.

“We’ve had really solid pitching and kind of knew we would,” first-year head coach Kyle Gammons said. “The JV kids from last year got a lot of innings in and really improved over the winter and that pitching has kept us in a lot of games this year. In years past, we weren’t quite as deep on the mound. I think that’s really helped us and the emergence of some players playing really well.”

Franklin-Simpson will complete a backloaded schedule against Region 4 teams Allen County-Scottsville, Barren County and two games against Greenwood before starting next week’s District 13 Tournament against Russellville.

Gammons intentionally loaded the back end of the regular season to prepare his team for what they’ll see in the coming weeks.

“The guys are played really good baseball and I’ve told them no matter the situation that they keep grinding at it and we’re in every game, even the ones we’ve lost,” Gammons said. “We’re definitely where we want to be.”