MONTICELLO –The Lawrence County Cougars defeated the QuitmanPanthers 6-5 on Saturday, clinching the region victory in theopening round of the state 4A state playoffs. In winning the firstround of the playoffs, played in a 4-team double-eliminationtournament format, the Cougars won 3 straight games.

Lawrence County will advance to the second round, in which theCougars will play either East Central or Bay St. Louis in abest-of-three series.

The clinching win was anything but easy for the Cougars.Quitman, which finished the season with a record of 15-17, lit upLawrence County starter Trent Hartzog for 5 runs, on 7 hits, in thefirst 2 innings. Hartzog settled in, however, shutting the Panthersout the rest of the way, as the Cougars slowly clawed their wayback into the game.

The Lawrence County comeback culminated in the bottom of theseventh, with Mackenzie Woods smashing a line drive single whichdrove home Joseph Evans with the winning run.

For first-year Lawrence County coach Cory Keyes, whose Division6-4A champion Cougars improved to 25-5 on the season, the wincapped a memorable regional, in what has become a magicalseason.

“This is pretty amazing,” Keyes said. “In the last inningagainst McComb (Friday), it looked like we were going to lose. Andafter one inning today, it certainly looked like we might lose.

“I’m very proud of the way our guys compete,” he continued.”Quitman had to beat us twice today. After that first inning, itwould have easy for our guys to write off that first game, but theydidn’t. When Trent went back out there and shut them down, our guystruly believed that we were going to come back and win thisgame.”

The Lawrence County win spoiled a courageous effort put forth byQuitman left-hander Mack Creighton who had pitched a complete-gamewin over Wayne County the day before. On no rest, the tall, lankysouthpaw came back and pitched into the sixth inning onSaturday.

Quitman hit Hartzog, the Cougars’ sophomore hurler, hard in thefirst inning. Six of the Panthers’ first eight batters got hits,the biggest blow being a 3-run double off the bat of Creighton.

In the second, Quitman first baseman Jaymie Smith doubled home arun, giving the Panthers a 5-0 lead.

“Trent’s pitching was the key to the game,” said long-timeLawrence County assistant Craig Davis.

“Some guys would need counseling after the first inning he had,but he just got bull-headed and kept firing. If he had gottenrattled, we would’ve been run out of there in five innings.”

After Smith’s second-inning double, Hartzog retired 15 of thenext 16 Quitman batters. For the game, he allowed 8 hits, walked 1,and struck out 7.

Lawrence County’s comeback started in the bottom of the third.With 1 out, Joseph Evans singled. One out later, he was singledhome by Johnathan Stephens. Cougar right fielder Taebyus Smith thengot his team right back into the thick of things, connecting forhis sixth home run of the season. Quitman’ lead was cut to 5-3.

It was still 5-3 in the bottom of the sixth, when the Cougarsrallied to tie the game. The key hit was a single to right by thirdbaseman Mackenzie Woods, who was batting for the first time. Woodsbatted in place of designated hitter Marty Ballard.

“It looks kind of strange when you replace your hottest hitter,”Davis said. “Marty has been on fire the last couple of weeks, buthe was really having a tough time of it with that left-hander.Coach Keyes made a gutsy call there, and it turned out to be avery, very good one.”

In the bottom of the seventh, Evans reached base via a hitbatsman, and stole second. Eventually, the Cougars loaded the baseswith none out. With Quitman playing with 5 infielders, all withinabout 60 feet of home plate, Panther reliever Tony Peebles struckout Taebyus Smith, and got Michael Thompson to pop up toshortstop.

Just when it looked like the Cougars’ golden opportunity wasgoing to slip away, Woods slammed Peebles’ first pitch into leftfield, touching off a wild Lawrence County celebration.

Woods and catcher Jake Russell each had 2 hits to lead theCougars. Evans, Stephens, Smith, and Jeremy Williams each had 1.Jaymie Smith and Matthew Harris each had 2 hits for Quitman.

“Hosting this tournament was a great experience for ourprogram,” Coach Keyes said. “Winning it only makes it that muchbetter. Our guys did a great job, and we had three classy,well-coached opponents to play with. It was a fine three days.”