MONTICELLO — The Lawrence County Cougars claimed their secondstraight Division 6-4A baseball championship Friday night,splitting a doubleheader with the Terry Bulldogs. The Cougars’ 9-2win in the second game of the twinbill, coupled with a 4-1 win atTerry on Tuesday, was all the Cougars needed to earn the divisiontitle. Terry won Friday’s first game 7-2 at Jimmie Davis Park.

With the win, Lawrence County, under second-year coach CoryKeyes, improved to 23-3 overall, and 16-2 in Division 6-4A. Terry,under veteran coach Jerry Gibson, earned second place in thedivision with a 14-4 mark. Brookhaven also finished 14-4 in thedivision, and claimed third place.

“It was a fine night, in what’s been a great season so far,”Coach Keyes said. “We had great weather, a great crowd, and thedivision championship came down to the last division game of theseason. It couldn’t have been any better.”

Terry entered Friday’s doubleheader needing a sweep to win thedivision championship. When Bulldog right-hander Parker Fowlerstymied the Cougars in the opening game, it looked as though Terrywas poised to do just that.

However, a rock-solid pitching effort from Joseph Evans and amammoth 3-run homer from Nick Jackson swung the momentum, and thedivision title, back in the direction of Lawrence County.

“We haven’t faced much adversity all season,” Keyes said, “sowhen it comes, you don’t really know how your team is going tohandle it. I was very proud of the way our guys battled back afterhaving a tough time of it in that first game. That says a lot aboutthe character of our players.”

Terry 7, Lawrence Co. 2

Fowler’s first-game pitching effort was what gave the Cougarstheir character test. In 6-plus innings of work, the hard-throwingrighty limited Lawrence County to just 2 runs on 8 hits. He shutthe Cougars out through 5 innings, before finally allowing 2 runson 3 hits in the top of the sixth. Fowler struck out 2.

Second baseman Cody Saranthus relieved Fowler in the seventh andretired the last 3 batters, striking out 2 of them.

Terry touched Lawrence County starter Trent Hartzog for 2 runsin the top of the first, when Jonathan Pace led off with a double,and dynamic catcher Rashun Dixon pounded a 2-run homer onto theLawrence County Vo-Tech Center, beyond the right field fence.

The Bulldogs’ Antwon Dixon, one of 3 Dixon brothers in the Terrylineup, singled and scored in the third, then hit a long solo homerin the fifth. That gave Terry a 4-0 lead.

The Cougars made a game of it in the bottom of the sixth asHartzog, Taebyus Smith, and Nick Jackson put together hits, cuttingthe lead to 4-2.

Marty Ballard relieved Hartzog in the top of the seventh, andwalked the first 2 batters. Hartzog re-entered and completed thegame, but Terry scored 3 times to put the game away.

“It obviously didn’t work,” said long-time LCHS assistant CraigDavis, “but that move wasn’t quite as crazy as it might havelooked. Trent pitched a pretty solid game, but the top 3 guys intheir order, Pace and the first two Dixon brothers, had just wornhim out. They were a combined 6 for 8, with two jacks (home runs).We just gave someone else a chance to get those guys out.”

That trio, Pace, and Antwon and Rashun Dixon, were a combined 7of 9 for the game. They scored all 7 Terry runs, and drove in 5 ofthem.

In 7 innings of work, Hartzog struck out 6, and allowed 7hits.

Jackson, Ballard, and Evans each had 2 hits for Lawrence County.Hartzog and Smith each had 1.

“It’s no shame to lose to a great team like Terry,” Davis said,”but we didn’t play a very good game. We screwed up a lot of littlethings that a casual fan probably wouldn’t even notice. It wasn’t adivision championship-caliber performance. Thankfully, we reboundeda played a little sharper game in the nightcap.

Lawrence Co. 9, Terry 2

A combination of quality pitching, hitting, and defensepropelled the Cougars to the division title in the second game.Junior Joseph Evans pitched what was probably his best game of theseason. After giving up a run in the top of the first, Evansretired 15 Bulldogs in a row, before finally surrendering asixth-inning solo homer to Rashun Dixon. Evans limited Terry to 4hits, while striking out 6. He did not walk a single batter.

In the bottom of the first, a Marty Ballard RBI single knottedthe game at 1-1. In the second, Cougar catcher Zachary Summerssingled. Courtesy runner Dominique West moved to third on an Evansdouble, and scored on a wild pitch, making it 2-1. Nick Jackson andJake Russell had singles in the third. A Mackenzie Woods sacrificefly increased the Cougar lead to 3-1.

In the fourth, Lawrence County took control of the game. Evansand Hartzog had singles in the inning, but it was first basemanNick Jackson’s monumental blast, a 3-run shot that went over theVo-Tech center, that largely sealed Terry’s fate.

“Nick’s blast gave us control of the game,” coach Cory Keyessaid. “Joseph was pitching very well, and we still had Jake(Russell) in reserve if we’d needed him. We were prepared to useJake for as many as 9 outs tonight, but Joseph’s great game madethat unnecessary.”

Mackenzie Woods singled and scored in the fifth, and TaebyusSmith launched a long solo homer in the sixth, wrapping up theCougars’ scoring.

Woods, Jackson, and Evans each had 2 hits for Lawrence County.Hartzog, Smith, Ballard, Russell, and Summers each had 1.

Keyes praised the defensive work of catcher Summers, who workedwith Cougars pitchers to slow down the vaunted Terry runninggame.

“Zachary had a very good week,” Keyes said. “Terry likes to getthose fast guys on the bases and just run you into the ground. Thatdidn’t happen this week. Our pitchers did a good job of picking,and Zachary knocked off his share of them. Then, in the last game,they didn’t have any opportunities to run after the firstinning.”

Lawrence County will close out its regular season with anon-division game at Natchez on Monday.