Some might call it a miracle. Others might say it was just acoincidence. The rest would say it was flat-out luck.

Whatever phrase is used to describe Brookhaven Academy’s Game 1win against Copiah Academy in the opening round of the MPSA’s ClassAA State baseball playoffs, this fact remains. It was yet anotherincredible pitching performance.

For the second time in as many meetings between the two teams,Brookhaven pitching delivered the dominating performance as BAsenior Zach Watson silenced the Colonel bats by throwing ano-hitter in a 2-0 Tuesday night victory over the visitingColonels.

It matched the no-hit performance by teammate Corey Dickersonjust 5 days ago in the regular season finale. Watson struck outthree batters and walked 2 as the Cougars won the first of abest-of-3 series.

Copiah pitcher Scotty Reese pitched a gem as well, but threeerrors by the Colonel defense ended up being the difference. BothReese and Watson held the opposing bats hitless through the thirdinning, but a hit batsman and throwing error set Brookhaven up withrunners at first and third in the bottom of the fourth. Will Gatlinhit a sacrifice fly to score Keith Franklin, giving Brookhaven a1-0 lead.

Kolby Byrd then drew a walk, setting the Cougars up with runnersat first and second. Reese got a ground ball from Cougar thirdbaseman Jeremy James, but a throwing error allowed Dickerson toscore, giving Brookhaven the 2-0 lead.

Reese struck out 6 batters and walked two in the loss. He gaveup 2 runs on three hits.

Franklin, a Copiah-Lincoln Community College signee, doubled andsingled for Brookhaven. Watson singled.

“It was the same story as Thursday night.” said Copiah coachScotty Cline. “Watson pitched extremely well and their defense madesome great plays behind him. It’s tough to beat a team that’splaying like that.

“Tonight makes 12 straight innings against them without gettinga hit,” Cline noted. “You can’t win ballgames without hitting thebaseball.”

Asked about his no-hit performance, Watson said, “Scotty Reesepitched just as good as I did. They made a couple of errors andthat hurt them, but he was throwing the ball really well. It wastough for us to get hits off of him.

“I’m excited to throw a no-hitter.” continued Watson. “Mycurveball was working really well and I had good control of it. Ihad pretty good control of my fastball, too. Hopefully we can keepplaying like we have the past few games and keep winning.”

Brookhaven (13-9), coached by Stephen Cooksey, travels to Copiah(11-8) Thursday night for the second round of the 3-game set. Gametime is 6 p.m. in Gallman. If necessary, game three will be Fridaynight in Brookhaven.