LUMBERTON – The Lumberton Panthers rode the pitching of ThomasRoyals to a 10-0 Monday night victory over the Loyd Star Hornets inthe semifinals of the Class 2A South state playoffs. Loyd Star hadforced a third game in the best-of-three series when the Hornetsrallied to beat Lumberton 7-6 Saturday at Loyd Star.

Lumberton (27-11) advances to the South finals to play Seminarythis week in a best-of-three series. Ackerman plays Mooreville forthe North title.

Loyd Star (21-10), coached by Sidney Wheatley, was limited to 6hits last night. Seth Britt was the losing pitcher.

The Panthers finished with 12 hits. They got a home run fromKeelan Jones.

On the mound, Royals gave up 7 hits, struck out 10 and walked3.

Seth Britt started on the mound for Loyd Star and was replacedby Blake Wall in the third. Britt gave up 4 runs on 3 hits,striking out 2 and walking 2.

Cass Brister and Britt singled twice for Loyd Star. Blake Walldoubled. Collecting single hits for Loyd Star were MatthewDelaughter and Logan Portrey.

“Lumberton is an excellent baseball team and they are anexperienced group,” said Loyd Star coach Sidney Wheatley. “Theystart eight seniors and their designated hitter is a senior,too.

“I felt like if we could have scored early, the game could havegone a different way. We hit Royals early but we left 11 runners onbase. I’m proud of our group and the season they had.”

Loyd Star loses three senior starters in Brister, Britt andPortrey.

@Linescore:LUMBERTON 10, LOYD STAR

Loyd Star

000

000 –

0

7

2

Lumberton

006

031 –

10

11

2

@Bbstandings: Seth Britt, Blake Wall (3) and Matthew Delaughter.Thomas Royals and Zach Royals. WP: Royals. LP: Britt (6-4).HR: Keelan Jones (L). 2B: Wade Abercrombie (L), RaphaelRogers (L), Wall (LS). Multiple hits: Jones (L) 2, Rogers (L) 2,Niemeyer (L) 2, Cass Brister (LS) 2, S. Britt (LS) 2.