South Pittsburg’s baseball team picked the perfect time to claim its first win of the season over rival Marion County on Wednesday evening. The Pirates grabbed an early lead, then extended it in the later innings on their way to an 8-2 victory for the District 6-A tournament championship.
“We call ourselves the dirty dozen because we’ve only got 12 players on the roster right now, but I wouldn’t trade this bunch for anybody else’s,” Pirates coach Brian Paris said. “We’ve only got one senior on the team, but our young guys are just so tough. Every time somebody has challenged them, they’ve responded, and they came up big in this one.”
After beginning the season 1-5, and having four players leave the team, the Pirates have been hot of late and improved to 22-9. They will host Silverdale Baptist Academy in Monday’s Region 3-A semifinals. Marion County will travel to Boyd-Buchanan.
The Warriors had taken a short-lived lead with a run in the home half of the first before Travis Rowell’s two-run single in the second gave South Pittsburg the lead for good. Jess Morrison added a two-run home run in the fifth, and after Pirates sophomore reliever Mason Fuqua worked his way out of a bases-loaded, one-out jam in the bottom of the fifth, Kellye Cawood gave South Pittsburg all the cushion it would need with a two-run homer in the sixth.
Sophomore E.J. Cagle improved to 7-1 with the win and classmate Fuqua earned his fourth save of the season with three innings of work, including striking out the side to close out the seventh.
“It was a huge momentum swing when Jess hit his homer, and our kids fed off that,” said Paris, who played for and graduated from Marion County in 1994. “And then Mason got us out of trouble and we come back in and get another huge hit from Cawood.
“Mason has been a bulldog for us all year closing out games. He just comes in and throws strikes. Any time you beat Jasper, it’s always big for us, but especially this one for the district title.”
Contact Stephen Hargis at shargis@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6293. Follow him on Twitter @StephenHargis.