Complete games on the baseball diamond on March are even rarer than 75-degree days.

Scott County basked in both uncommon joys of the early season Monday, riding Brady Crace’s three-hit, one-walk, 94-pitch gem to a 3-0 home shutout of George Rogers Clark.

It was the Cardinals’ seventh win in their first eight games — a start unseen since 2017 — and the fifth time they have allowed two or fewer runs.

“My fastball and change-up were really working for me,” Crace said of his first varsity victory. “Being able to hit that outside corner really helped a lot.”

Crace retired the final eight batters for George Rogers Clark (2-4) and took care of business in 90 minutes.

The tidy performance lowered his ERA to 2.28 and gave SC needed flexibility heading into a 42nd District doubleheader Tuesday and Wednesday, followed by next week’s spring trip to Vero Beach, Florida.

“I think he was way below 100 pitches,” SC coach Scott Willard said. “Now we have six pitchers we can use over the next two days. What he did was really good.”

Scott County supported Crace with two runs in the bottom of the third inning and another in the fifth.

Sophomore Jacob Skinner made GRC pay for a leadoff walk to Carson Murray and an intentional pass of Duncan Stevens, shooting a two-out line drive into left field to put the Cards on top, 2-0.

“He was hitting right at .400 going into today and had two hits today,” Willard said of Skinner, one of only two non-seniors in the batting order. “When he stays dead up the middle, he’s a really good hitter.”

GRC’s choice to pitch around Stevens, who hit a home run in each of SC’s previous three games and has four on the season, backfired again two innings later.

Will Rose singled ahead of the four offerings well out of the strike zone to the slugging catcher.

Rose and courtesy runner Wyatt Jones then executed a double steal, and Clark’s errant throw to third allowed Rose to score easily.

“I was talking to their third baseman, and he said, ‘He had four home runs last week, didn’t he, Coach?’ You don’t get that in the major leagues,” Willard said.

Crace retired the side in order to start the game, then pitched around a leadoff single by Cole Fithen in the second.

“Working first strike is really big,” Crace said. “Once you get that first strike, you can work from there.”

Tanner Ratliff and Haddon Cecil teamed up with singles for the only other threat with one out in the fifth.

Harmless floaters to Colt Fields at third base and Murray in center started Crace’s cruise to the finish.

“He went out and attacked the strike zone,” Willard said. “It helped that he worked himself out of some jams so they couldn’t score. That all worked out well for us.”

Georgetown’s Cardinals are now 11-2 against Winchester’s Cardinals over the past 16 seasons.

SC split with Frederick Douglass in Tuesday and Wednesday’s 42nd District opening series (see related story), and the Cards are still riding high on the early success that had them ranked No. 8 in the state by MaxPreps to start the week.

“I think it’s the team chemistry. We all work well together. We all really like this group. We think we can go places,” Crace said. “We’re really confident. We think we can do things in the district.”