CLINTON – Lawrence County got a mixed bag of results in Saturday afternoon high school baseball action at Clinton High School. In the first of two games, LCHS suffered a gut-wrenching defeat to host Clinton losing 4-3. The Cougars rebounded nicely, however, and hammered Quitman by an 11-3 score.

With those results, Josh Garrett’s Cougars closed out the week with an overall record of 13-7. With a 4-4 mark in Division 7-4A play, Lawrence County is locked into fourth place in the division standings.

“We had a pretty good day,” said Garrett, “but we were one out from having a great day. The loss to Clinton was easily the toughest loss I’ve had in my short tenure. I was very appreciative of the way our guys came back and gave great effort in the second game. It’s not easy to overcome a heart-break like that.”

It was a tough loss. Behind the pitching of left-hander Brennan Lang, LCHS held a 3-1 lead over Clinton going to the bottom of the seventh. After Lang recorded the first out on a fly ball, back-to-back singles brought Cougar ace Kody Smith to the mound in relief.

The first batter Smith faced hit a bouncer back to the senior hurler. However, Smith’s toss to first base was mishandled, sending the potential tying run to third. It allowed the potential game-winner to reach base. Smith struck out the next Arrow hitter. Then he intentionally walked standout leadoff hitter Tyrance Carr after the count went to 3-0.

That brought up Mississippi Valley State signee Johnnie Moncure. Smith quickly got ahead 0-2, but multiple close pitches didn’t go Lawrence County’s way after that. Finally, Moncure bounced a game-ending single to center field.

“I hate it for Bee (Lang) that he lost his win,” long-time LCHS assistant Craig Davis said, “and I hate that Kody got saddled with the loss. They both did great. That game just wasn’t going to end on a called third strike. Hats off to the kid for getting a clutch hit, but he got it on about strike five or six.”

Lang was outstanding. He got a win over Clinton in relief earlier in the season, and he threw six masterful innings on Saturday. Before the seventh inning, Clinton had just one second-inning run on three hits. Lang struck out three.

LCHS got one in the first, on a Josh Stephens double and a Logan Greenlee RBI single. The Cougars’ second run came in the fourth, an unearned tally plated by a two-out Brandon Bullock single. In the sixth, after two were out, Kody Smith and Gabriel Lewis had doubles to make it a 3-1 game. Kasey Durr also had a hit for Lawrence County.

Clinton, which improved to 13-5 with the win, got two hits each from catcher Michael Brown and first baseman Dylan Creel.

In the second game, Quitman got three straight two-out, run-scoring singles in the second inning to grab a 3-1 lead. Lawrence County tied it with single runs in the third and fifth innings. In the sixth and seventh innings, LCHS put the game away, tallying four runs in each frame. A two-run single by Josh Stephens in the sixth gave the Cougars the lead for good. A two-run double by Brandon Bullock in the seventh sealed the win.

Stephens and pitcher Logan Greenlee led the Cougars with two hits each. Durr, Smith, Bullock, Marcus Atterberry, Noah McLaurin and Seth Bass each had one hit.

The real story was Greenlee’s pitching effort. The senior threw seven innings – right after catching seven innings in the Clinton game. Greenlee scattered six hits and struck out three.

“That was a tremendous senior effort when we needed it,” said Coach Garrett. “We were feeling pretty low after that first game, and our pitching staff was pretty depleted. I sent him out there not expecting seven innings, but he got better as the game went along.”

Shortstop Carey Horn went 3-for-4 to lead Quitman accounting for half of the Panthers’ hits. Quitman fell to 7-11 with the loss.

“That was a tremendous effort by our guys,” Davis said, “rebounding from one of the toughest-to-swallow losses we’ve had in a long, long time. Some teams would have mailed in that second game, but our guys didn’t, and we coaches really appreciate that.

“This is a fine facility, and we had a great day here. We’ve had a great relationship with Eddie (Lofton) and his program for a long time. They run a class act here.”