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Photo by Ted Melton
Spain Park Baseball
Spain Park's Jacob Rich is shown in a game earlier this season.
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Kyle Parmley
Chelsea Softball
Chelsea's Camryn Smith is shown in a game earlier this season.
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Kyle Parmley
Oak Mountain Softball
Oak Mountain's Abi Brown is shown in a game earlier this season.
The Spain Park High School baseball team and the Oak Mountain and Chelsea high school softball teams were each in action on Monday night. The Jags and Hornets pulled off impressive wins, while the Eagles stumbled in a loss.
After falling behind early, Spain Park used a big second inning to propel the Jags to an 11-5 win at home against Pinson Valley.
Will Evans led off the bottom of the second inning with a home run to get the Jags on the board, and Peyton Sanderson and Jacob Rich each chipped in a two-run single in the frame, as Spain Park jumped ahead 5-3 and maintained that edge the rest of the way.
Pinson Valley got a run back in the top of the fifth, as Spain Park starter Hunter Howell exited after 4 1/3 innings of work. Out of his four runs allowed, only one was earned.
The Jags piled on two more in the fifth and four in the sixth to run away with the contest. Along with Rich and Sanderson, Evans and Justin McClure both had multi-RBI days at the plate as well. McClure and Rich each registered multi-hit games.
For Spain Park, Jarrod Kennington allowed an unearned run in 1 2/3 innings of work, and Sanderson finished off a perfect seventh.
Hornets dismantle Childersburg
Coming off three losses in its last four games, Chelsea was looking for a bounce back performance. The Hornets got that in a dominant 17-0 win over Childersburg.
Chelsea scored at least two runs in each of the four innings, with sophomore Camryn Smith hurling a one-hit shutout on the other side. Seven Hornet hitters recorded more than one hit in the ball game, and Brooke Burback and Allie Miller each picked up four RBIs on the afternoon.
But the star of the game was Smith, who – along with a great performance in the circle – led the Hornets with five runs batted in, including the final hit that scored three runs and forced the run rule into effect in the fourth inning.
Smith allowed just one hit and fanned 10 of the 14 batters she faced. She only had to throw 49 pitches on the day.
Eagles have bad day in the field
One bad inning cost Oak Mountain against Thompson in a 10-5 loss. In the first five innings of play, only one half inning featured any action on the scoreboard, but it was a big one.
Six Thompson runs came across to score in the fourth to put the Warriors out front. Thompson scored five of those runs after the inning should have been completed, as an error with two outs in the inning prolonged it and set up the big frame.
Oak Mountain’s defense committed 11 errors in the game and surrendered two more unearned runs in the sixth before the Eagles finally got on the board themselves. Abi Brown drove in a pair on a double to cut Thompson’s lead to 8-3.
However, Thompson scored another pair of unearned runs in the seventh, and the game ended after the Eagles plated a pair of their own in the bottom of the seventh.