Panthers land in state playoffs
Published 5:00 am Tuesday, April 17, 2007
TERRY — Coach Randy Spring’s Brookhaven Panthers are going tothe state playoffs. They claimed the No. 2 spot in the Division6-4A Tournament after rain canceled Saturday’s showdown with No 1seed Terry. In a pretournament agreement, the coaches decided thatin the event of a rainout, the top seed would be considered thetournament champion.
Ole Brook lost 2-0 to Terry in Friday’s second round butrebounded to eliminate Lawrence County 2-1 later that day inanother classic duel.
The Panthers (20-10) will be on the road Thursday for theopening round of the best-of-three series, facing the Division 7-4Achampion. The second game will be played on Ole Brook’s Moyer FieldFriday night.
D’Iberville was undefeated in the division tournament, enteringMonday’s action.
“We have been up and down towards the end of the year but wepitched extremely well this weekend,” said Spring. “We showed sometoughness. We battled through it.”
Spring said his staff gave up 11 hits in 21 innings. “We onlywalked two and one of those was intentional. We struck out 22 andand gave up only 1 earned run. Bud (Britt), Paxton (King) and Cole(Newell) were outstanding.”
Brookhaven 2, Lawrence County 1
On the mound, Britt gave up 4 hits and 1 run. He struck out 4batters and walked none. He threw 71 pitches in 7 innings.
Mackenzie Woods took the loss for LCHS. In 7 innings, he gave up2 runs on 5 hits, fanning 6 and walking none. He hit 4 batters.
In the 2-run third, BHS leadoff batter Taylor Newman was hit bya pitch. R.J. Jenkins bunted and sacrificed Newman to second base.He advanced to third on a wild pitch.
Newman was pushed home on a suicide squeeze bunt by ElliottWarren. Paxton King followed with a double and scored the winner onBritt’ single.
The Cougars (23-8) scored in the third. Justin Hewitt led offwith a single. Joseph Evans advanced Hewitt on a ground out.Zachary Summers followed with an RBI single.
“We had a great ball game,” said Spring. “It was two goodpitchers and teams going at it.”
Terry 2, Brookhaven 0
Conner Butts, a junior southpaw, gave up 2 hits, chalking up histhird straight shutout. He fanned 8 batters, walked 2 and hit1.
Newell (3-3) gave up 4 hits and no earned runs. He fanned 2batters and walked 2.
At the plate, Nick Helmstetter and Newell singled for thePanthers.
“Those two errors we committed in the second inning just killedus,” said Coach Spring.
Bubba Davis singled twice for the Bulldogs (20-8).