PETAL– The Petal Panthers slammed the Lawrence County Cougars11-1 in high school baseball action Saturday afternoon at PetalCity Park. The 8-0 Panthers broke open a tight game with afourth-inning outburst and never looked back in rolling to asix-inning, 10-run rule win.

With the loss, Chris Clark’s Cougars are off to a 2-5 start.Lawrence County currently stands at 1-1 in Division 6-4A action.Clark, whose 2003 team advanced all the way to the SouthMississippi finals after a 3-7 start, is hopeful for a similarimprovement this season.

“We’re going to keep battling,” Clark said. “Obviously, thisisn’t the start we were hoping for but most of our schedule isstill ahead of us. Many of the players who took us deep into theplayoffs last year are still here, so we’re still optimistic.”

Lawrence County has two big division games scheduled, withMcComb and Terry, in the next five days. Brookhaven took the earlylead in the division with a 10-9 win over LCHS on Friday night sothe Cougars need division wins right now to stay in the thick ofthe division race.

“With four division teams going (to the playoffs), there isn’tas much nightly pressure from the standpoint of just getting in,”Clark explained, “but there is a big advantage for the divisionchampion. If we want to stay in the running for that, we need to dosome good this week.”

It was Petal that did most of the good on Saturday. AfterLawrence County scored an unearned run to take a 1-0 lead in thetop of the second, Panther lefty Drew Cartlidge settled in and shutthe Cougars out the rest of the way. Cartlidge allowed just threehits, all singles, and struck out three en route to the win.

Jeremy Williams, Luke Watts and Casey Williams had the lone hitsfor Lawrence County.

Sophomore southpaw Marty Ballard made his first career start forLawrence County. Ballard pitched well for three innings, only tosee things go awry in the bottom of the fourth. Through threeinnings, LCHS trailed 2-1, having allowed just two hits.

Sophomore right-hander Jake Russell relieved Ballard in the thefourth. He pitched the remainder of the game. The game was haltedin the bottom of the sixth via the 10-run rule.

Right-fielder Steven Lansdale led Petal with two hits.Left-fielder Bryan Cooley clouted a solo homer. The Panthers, underthe direction of Loyd Star product Kevin Britt, scored nine runs onsix hits in the final three innings.

Lawrence County will return to Division 6-4A action at McComb onTuesday night.