MONTICELLO – The Columbia Wildcats exploded for six runs in twoinnings to claim an 8-5 victory over Lawrence County in high schoolvarsity baseball action Saturday afternoon. Lamar Hobgood’sseventh-inning grand slam capped off the late comeback, and gavethe Wildcats a rousing victory.

With the win, Columbia improved to 10-13 on the season. LawrenceCounty fell to 9-15 overall and stands at 4-8 in Division 6-4Aplay. First-year Lawrence County head coach Chris Clark summed upthe frustrations of the entire season.

“It was the story of the season,” Clark said. “We played adecent game, but we just didn’t do quite enough to win. People willremember the grand slam, but we hat lots of chances to blow thisgame open. We left runners in scoring position in four of the firstfive innings.”

Columbia took a 1-0 lead in the top of the first, on a JustinCrawley home run. LCHS responded with two unearned runs in thebottom of the inning and led 2-1.

Columbia tied it with a single run in the top of the third totie the game at 2-2. It stayed that way until the bottom of thesixth when LCHS put together a three-run inning. Nathan Evans andMichael Edwards had hits in the inning and Corey Rogerssuccessfully executed a squeeze bunt. Lawrence County led 5-2, andappeared to have things fairly well in hand.

One batter into the top of the sixth, Cougars’ ace MichaelEdwards relieved Dusty Williamson who had his best outing sinceopening day back in February. Columbia didn’t hit Edwards hard buttheir hits found the right spots. The Wildcats scored two in thesixth to cut the lead to 5-4, then rallied to win it in theseventh.

On most days, Hobgood’s grand slam would have been a game-tyingsacrifice fly to center, but with a stiff breeze bowling towardright center, it turned into much more.

Evans and Edwards led LCHS with two hits apiece. Anthony Rogersand Zack Powell each had one. Williamson pitched effectively. Infive-plus innings, he allowed five hits and struck out three.

Lawrence County returns to action Tuesday night when the Cougarshost South Pike in their final home game of the season.