MONTICELLO-The Purvis Tornadoes defeated the Lawrence County Cougars 6-1 in Region 7-4A high school baseball action Tuesday night at Jimmie Davis Park. “Eleven” was the big number for Purvis, as Tornado batters banged out 11 hits, and hard-throwing right-hander Joe Barrett struck out 11 Lawrence County batters. Purvis was also aided by 6 Cougar miscues.

With the win, Tony Farlow’s Tornadoes, the reigning Mississippi 4A champions, improved to 8-7 overall, and 4-1 in Region 7-4A play. Lawrence County, under ninth-year coach Cory Keyes, fell to 7-7 overall, and 2-3 in the region.

“Purvis has a fine team,” Keyes said, “and Barrett is a tough high school pitcher. But we aided them a lot with our screw-ups. Several of those 11 hits came after we should have been out of innings.”

Purvis catcher Ethan Taylor led off the game with the first of his 2 doubles. He was singled home by shortstop Nathan Roseberry, as the Tornadoes grabbed a 1-0 lead. Purvis scored unearned runs in both the second and third to increase its lead to 3-0.

The Tornadoes put together 4 hits in the fifth, and tallied 2 runs. Officially, both runs were earned, but the second was aided by a Cougar misplay. Purvis scored its final run in the sixth, and it was also unearned.

LCHS right-hander Hunter Stephens worked 6 gutsy innings, and probably deserved better. He struck out 2. John Hedgepeth pitched a scoreless seventh.

“His stat line won’t show it,” said long-time LCHS assistant Craig Davis, “but Hunter gave us very good game. If we had played clean tonight, it would have been a 2-1 game, instead of a 6-1 game.

“We’ve got to play clean if we are to have success against the really good teams. We’re not a bad team, but we’ve really got to do things right to beat these strong teams, and we haven’t consistently done that.”

Barrett, meanwhile, was giving the Cougars a hard time. He allowed only 3 hits while racking up his 11 strikeouts. T-Tez Cole had a double for Lawrence County. Hunter Stephens and Jordan McCaffrey had singles McCaffrey’s fifth-inning hit led to the Cougars’ only run. He scored on a Cole groundout.

Taylor, Tyler Abney, and Seth Beall each had 2 hits for Purvis.

Purvis also won in junior varsity play, holding off a late LCHS rally for a 4-3 win. Noah McLaurin, Logan Greenlee, and Markus Kees had hits for the Cougars. Kody Smith pitched a strong game.