PETAL – After dropping the first game of district play against Oak Grove on Tuesday, Petal rebounded with a 7-1 win over the Warriors with a big sixth inning.
PETAL – After dropping the first game of district play against Oak Grove on Tuesday, Petal rebounded with a 7-1 win over the Warriors with a big sixth inning.
Leading to the sixth inning, the two teams found themselves in a pitching duel after Logan Walters gave Petal a 2-0 lead for most of the game.
In the first inning, the Panthers got on the board first as Logan Walters hit a two-run home run off starting Oak Grove pitcher DeeJay Booth to give Petal the early lead and cushion.
“I saw the ball well,” Walters said. “I saw it on the barrel and connected with it, but I just put a lot of barrel on it. I saw the pitch before and I knew that I was seeing the ball well this game, I put a good swing on it and got it out.”
After one inning, Booth was pulled after he allowed two runs from two hits, walked three batters and struck out two.
“Deejay wasn’t feeling good on the mound, so we needed to make a change,” Oak Grove coach Chris McCardle said. “He didn’t have his best stuff and he had a little tenderness in his arm and took him out after the first inning.”
From there, Oak Grove relief pitcher JP Lyon went head-to-head with Petal’s starting pitcher Blake Hooks as the two threw four scoreless innings.
In the top of the sixth, the Warriors got on the board with an RBI sac fly from Zach Little, but a pickoff play by Hooks cut the inning short for Oak Grove.
In the bottom of the sixth, Petal had two runners reach base off an infield error and a walk, but Lyon almost managed to recover after picking up two outs. Lyon loaded the bases with a hit batter in which Matt Mercer made him pay for the mistake with a two-run RBI single that extended Petal’s lead 4-1. The Panthers added one more run off a double steal and an RBI single from Cade Law.
“He’s got a good fastball,” Walters said. “His fastball is very sneaky. He has a lot of spin on his ball and has a good slider. He commanded the zone. We didn’t find many barrels on him, but we got him in the sixth inning and hit him around a little bit.”
In 4.2 innings, Lyon allowed five runs off four hits, hit two batters and walked one while striking out three.
“I thought JP came in and did a tremendous job for us,” McCardle said. “He put up zeros all the way to the sixth. We made some bad plays and screwed up in the middle infield. There is bunt defenses that we go over every day and we just didn’t execute them like they were supposed to. They got a couple of key hits there in that inning, but I thought Hooks did a really good job against us. We didn’t adjust well at the plate. We had a chance there when we got the one run, but we made a base running mistake.”
In five innings of work, Hooks gave up four hits, walked three batters and struck out.
“I was just able to throw different pitches and locate today,” Hooks said. “I was able to locate and not stray away from the strike zone too much and just kept it around there the whole game.”
Walters finished 2-for-4 with two RBI and Law finished 3-for-4 with one RBI.
According to Petal coach Shane Kelly, the night was a depiction of the baseball his team was meant to play.
“Logan, I think jump started by giving us a little offense and giving us a cushion there,” Kelly said. “Blake did a great job of just coming in and throwing strikes. He has a lot of movement on his ball and it’s tough for hitters to dig into the box. He mixed pitches really well tonight.
“In the sixth inning our guys just stayed with our approach that we had been doing the whole game. We just didn’t get those hits early in the game. They didn’t panic and stayed within themselves. Finally, we started getting those hits like I know we can do and what we are built to do.”
