by Rusty Ellis
LIVINGSTON – The Stone Memorial Panthers withstood a late Livingston Academy rally and scored two runs in the bottom of the seventh to take down the Wildcats 7-6 on Friday night.
“I feel like every time we play Livingston, it’s a fight back-and-forth,” said Stone head coach Trent Stokes. “Nobody’s ever out of it. We went with Titus Bisbee on the bump and he did a great job pounding the zone and mixing it up. He gave us a chance to win, so hats off to him. He just did a fantastic job from the jump.”
The Panthers jumped out to an early 1-0 lead, courtesy of Bryce Elmore’s RBI bunt-single in the first inning. After Livingston scored their first run in the top of the third, Stone answered with two more in the bottom of the frame on a wild pitch and a dropped third strike that gave the Panthers a 3-1 lead.
LA got a run back on a Zach Cotterman RBI groundout in the top of the fourth, but the Panthers took their largest lead of the game in the bottom of the fourth on a throwing error that scored two more runs and gave them a 5-2 lead.
The Wildcat rally began in the fifth inning, as a Drew Goolsby RBI single cut the deficit to 5-3, and Dawson Ledbetter’s RBI single in the top of the sixth capped off a three-run frame to give the Wildcats a 6-5 lead.
The score remained that way until the bottom of the seventh, where Stone rallied for the win. After a single and an error put runners at the corners with nobody out, a balk scored the game-tying run. Four batters later, Talyn Hurd walked with the bases loaded to score the game-winning run and cap the comeback win for the Panthers in 7-6 fashion.
“We knew we had to have some gritty at-bats from those guys,” Stokes said. “We couldn’t strike out, we had to make them earn it. We get a couple runners on, we get that flinch on the balk. We got another bunt down and once we got Talyn up there, we knew he was either going to get a strike and hit it or walk and win the game.”
After a heartbreaking loss to the Wildcats earlier in the week, Stokes sees quite a bit for his team to build on after battling to earn the season-split.
“It’s huge, we’ve had a lot of games where we’ve let somebody come back and take one,” Stokes said. “For them to come back and shake Monday, for them to mentally overcome that, we didn’t have to say too much to them. We had leaders speaking up there, so that’s where we want to continue to improve.”
Up next for Stone Memorial is a district back-to-back with DeKalb County beginning on Monday, while Livingston will take on White County.
