Oxford baseball clinches postseason berth in run-rule win over South Panola
Published 8:22 am Wednesday, March 28, 2018
By Jared Redding
On his 18th birthday, Parker Stinnett pitched a shutout and his team got to go home early.
The Oxford Chargers remained perfect in Region 2-6A, run ruling South Panola in the 5th inning by the score of 10-0 at Edwin Moak Field on Tuesday.
Their 10th win in a row gives the Chargers their first ever playoff berth in class 6A.
The game was controlled by Oxford (14-4, 4-0 2-6A) from start to finish for the most part, despite a fast start from the Tigers (6-9, 0-3).
“I thought it was one of the best overall games we have had played this year,” Oxford coach Chris Baughman said. “(South Panola) is very scrappy, good ball team and very good when (Blaine) Ware is on the mound. I thought our hitters did a really good job. We had really good at-bats. We have done that the past couple weeks and built on that tonight.”
Before the Chargers got rolling, South Panola opened the game with back-to-back hits from Mari Boyd and Nathan Herron, putting two runners on with no outs. Stinnett worked his way out of the inning preventing any further damage. The Tigers were only able to muster one hit the rest of the game.
“We had some things going, but you just have to execute the game of baseball and get those guys in,” South Panola coach Jake Mills said. “(Oxford) did a good job of getting out of it. Hats off to (Stinnett), he did a really good job out there and settled in. We just did a poor job of putting some ABs together. In division baseball, with three hits, you are not going to get a lot of wins that way.”
The scoring got started with John Reece McClure’s deep bomb to right field that went over the fence with the aid of wind. C.J. Terrell hit a three run homer not too long after that to give the Chargers a 4-0 lead after one inning. Bo Gatlin added a home run of his own in the bottom of the fifth inning.
McClure finished 1-for-3 at the plate and two RBIs. Clark Stovall finished 2-for-3 with two RBIs. The team as a whole had a .417 batting average.
Stinnett finished the game with 7 strikeouts and pitched all five innings.
“It wasn’t really (Stinnett’s) best stuff. His slider was on early,” Baughman said. “We saw that (South Panola) struggled with the fast ball against Tupelo. We just made some adjustments since last week and got on them early. He made some really good pitches to get out of it. I’m really proud of the way he finished up, keeping them from scoring.”
The Chargers will travel to Batesville on Thursday for second of three games against South Panola. First pitch scheduled for 7 p.m. with weather permitting.