MONTICELLO-The Lawrence County Cougars defeated the South PikeEagles 9-2 in Division 6-4A high school baseball action Saturdaynight at Jimmie Davis Park. The Cougars jumped to an early 7-0lead, then held on for the division win.

With the win, Coach Chris Clark’s Cougars improved to 5-9overall, and 2-3 in Division 6-4A. South Pike fell to 1-8 overall,and 1-4 in the division.

The booming bats of first baseman Casey Williams and leftfielder Jonathan Stephens paced Lawrence County. Williams had adouble and a home run and 4 RBIs. Stephens had a home run and atriple, driving in 2 runs. Freshman shortstop Trent Hartzog hadalso had 2 hits, a single and a double.

Lawrence County plated 3 unearned runs in the bottom of thefirst. Williams’s RBI double was the only hit in the inning.Stephens added a sacrifice fly.

The Cougars put together 4 consecutive extra base hits in thethird. With one out, Hartzog doubled to left-center. Klein Harbourfollowed with a double to right. Williams then banged his homer toleft field, followed by Stephens’s triple. Stephens later scored ona wild pitch to make it a 7-0 game.

Luke Watts worked 3 shutout innings for Lawrence County to earnthe win, but he left the game with arm stiffness after just 3innings. Catcher Jake Russell went to the mound and worked thefinal 4 innings. Russell worked a perfect fourth, but was roughedup for 2 runs on 3 hits in the fifth. The duo combined for 13strikeouts.

Javal Warren’s 2-run homer in the fifth cut the LCHS lead to7-2. Kelly Martin and Corey Green had singles in the inning. Thatwas all of the Eagles’ hits on the night.

Lawrence County stretched the lead to 8-2 on Stephens’s solohomer in the bottom of the fifth. In the sixth, J.P. Lewis had asingle, and scored on Marlon Stanfield’s RBI single.

Larry Lenoir pitched for South Pike, going the full 6 innings.He allowed 9 hits and struck out 3.