BROOKHAVEN – Lawrence County won one of two high school baseball games in this weekend’s Ole Brook Classic at Moyer Field. On Friday night, the Cougars hammered their host, the Ole Brook Panthers, 9-1. Just a dozen or so hours later, LCHS took on Franklin County in the first game of Saturday action. The Bulldogs came away with a 3-0 win.

In the win over Brookhaven, Lawrence County took advantage of Panther control problems to plate four first-inning runs without the benefit of a base hit. That was all the Cougars would need as LCHS hurlers Kody Smith and Joshua Stephens limited Ole Brook to just a run on four singles.

Smith singled home a run in the second to make it a 5-0 game. The Cougars then added two runs in both the fourth and fifth innings to put the game away. Brookhaven’s lone tally came in the second inning, on a two-out single by Judson Henning.

Lawrence County shortstop Kasey Durr reached base all four times – two singles and two walks – and scored four runs to power the Cougar offense. Stephens also had two hits. Smith, Rishad Haynes and Prentiss Anderson added one hit each.

Smith worked five strong innings, striking out five. Stephens struck out all three batters he faced in the sixth. The game was halted after six innings due to a two-hour tournament time limit.

Henning, Scotty Bateman, Penn Wilson, and Garrett Smith had base hits for the Panthers. Bateman started and worked four innings for Brookhaven. Dalton Fortado pitched the final two frames. Randy Spring’s Panthers, who dropped a 5-2 decision to Wesson in Friday’s early game, fell to 0-4 with the loss.

In the Saturday-morning game, Franklin County got great pitching and defense in its 3-0 shutout of Lawrence County. Chris Cantrell threw seven strong innings, striking out three. His strong defensive support allowed Cantrell to strand 12 LCHS baserunners.

The Bulldogs scored a run in the first and two more in the second, all unearned. In the first, DeMantre Collins reached first on an error, stole second, moved to third on a wild pitch and scored on a groundout.

In the second inning, after two were out, Teboe Hunt reached first on an error and came around to score on Collins’ booming triple to right. Collins scored when the Cougars’ throw to third base went awry.

Collins led the Bulldogs with two hits. Thomas Slagle and Graham Cowart also had hits for Franklin County.

Lawrence County had just enough offensive success to give itself hope all day, but none of the Cougars baserunners materialized into runs. With the help of six bases on balls and a hit batsman, LCHS got runners into scoring position in every inning, only to get shut out.

Kody Smith, Brandon Bullock, Marcus Atterberry and Prentiss Anderson had Lawrence County’s hits. Kasey Durr started and pitched four good innings, victimized by the unearned runs. Junior southpaw Brennan Lang, who lost his sophomore season to major back surgery, worked two shutout innings in relief. It was Lang’s first game appearance in almost two years.

Lawrence County, under first-year coach Josh Garrett, enters this week’s Southwest Mississippi Spring Break Baseball Classic with a record of 3-1. This is Lawrence County’s fifth straight year to host a major baseball event over spring break. Fourteen area schools will participate, with a total of 20 games on tap.

“We’re honored to have our area schools at our place during spring break,” Garrett said. “We just hope the weather comes through for us. It could be a challenging week in that regard. We hope to see all area baseball fans at our ballpark.”