The Brookhaven Academy Cougars welcomed a large home crowd to Harold Williams Ballpark to celebrate Senior Night and recognize their seven Cougar seniors and to take on the Prentiss Christian Saints.

With a win the Cougars would wrap up the District 5AA top spot going into the upcoming state playoffs. Not to disappoint, the Cougars (16-7) won their tenth straight game rolling to a convincing 10-0 win led by senior Newt Riley who struck out 16 Saints, gave up only one hit and had four hits of his own at the plate.

“Newt picked up right where he left off from last week with another great outing. He was also huge at the plate tonight,” said BA head coach Casey Edwards. “This was a great night for all our seniors. These guys have been in our program for 5 years and it was great to see them close out their last regular season home game with the win and capture the district title.”

Along with Riley’s 4 for 4 performance, senior Landon Nettles continued his hot hitting with two doubles and a single, Alex Smith and JP Jackson each contributed two hits to the Cougar cause. Bailey Warren and Steven Williams also hit safely to add to the BA total. Blake Greenlee had the lone hit for Prentiss.

Riley’s pitching line was rock solid going six innings, striking out 16, giving up one base hit and one base on balls to pick up the win. Dillon Crawford suffered the loss for the Saints.

The seniors honored tonight for Brookhaven Academy were: Jacob Boyd, Parker Myrick, Landon Nettles, Newt Riley, Jacob Thurman, Bailey Warren and Steven Williams. Senior statistician for the Cougars is Anna Carollo. Edwards summed up his thoughts about his senior class, “This group led us to our first goal of winning our district. If this team can keep it rolling, we’ll take a step closer each week to our final goal of another State Championship.”

The Cougars will travel to Prentiss on Friday to complete the district series. Varsity first pitch is scheduled for 3 pm with Jr. Varsity action immediately following. State tournament match-ups and brackets will be finalized this weekend.