PHS baseball places third
By Gary Smith
By splitting baseball games (winning 3-1 and losing 1-0) played last week against arch rival Gibson County, Peabody (15-8) will finish the district regular season in third place and enter the district tournament as the third seeded team.
PHS, with three district losses, will finish the regular season in third place behind front-runner Trinity Christian Academy, with one setback, and second place Gibson County, with two league defeats.
Both Peabody vs. Gibson County games were played at Dyer due to wet field conditions.
Evaluating the series, Peabody Coach Todd Lumley said, “The two ballgames were very tough and well-played by both teams. They were typical Peabody vs. Gibson County baseball games. The games were well-pitched by both clubs. In the first game, we took advantage of a little bit of wildness and scored a couple of runs. We played good defense and got an outstanding pitching performance from Noah Halbrook.”
The sophomore righthander recorded the win by limiting Gibson County to only one run on three hits with three strikeouts. Sam McKinney’s solo homerun in the bottom of the fourth inning proved to be the Pioneers’ only score. Noah Stafford and Adam Atkins also added hits for GCHS.
Payton Lamberson took the loss for Gibson County. He allowed three runs on four hits during 5 2/3 innings of mound duty. Tide batters worked the Pioneers’ pitchers for six walks. Base running mistakes plagued Trenton as the Tide stranded 11 runners.
Peabody generated a run in the first inning when Timothy Fields reached base on a hit and scored on Eli Hammonds’ RBI single.
After McKinney tied the score 1-1 on the homer in the fourth inning, PHS tallied the two runs in the top of the sixth frame for the game-winning scores. Josh Parks and JaLeon Motley scored runs on RBI by Landon Pickard and Hunter Hudson.
Accounting for Trenton’s five hits were Hammonds with two and Fields, Pickard and Parks with one each.
Explaining GC’s 1-0 win over PHS, Coach Lumley said, “The second game was another pitchers’ duel. Timothy Fields pitched an outstanding ballgame. The (Sam) McKinney kid threw a great game also for them. It was one of those games where all you have to say is that it is baseball. I thought we played well. The enthusiasm was great for both games. We had a couple of chances to score some runs, but it was one of those things where we hit the ball hard right at people. Gibson County pushed a run across the plate late in the game to win it.”
Gibson County produced the winning run in the top of the seventh inning when Austin Akins doubled and scored on Will Cantrell’s RBI double.
Tim Fields was the pitcher of decision for Trenton. In seven innings of work, he held GCHS to one run on three hits, with five strikeouts and one walk. Collecting GC’s hits were:Stephen Overstreet, Adkins and Cantrell, all with doubles.
Winning pitcher Sam McKinney limited PHS to zero runs on five hits, with five strikeouts en route to the complete game.
