By Michael Lindsay

District 7-3A tournament baseball continued Thursday afternoon in Baxter with top two seeds Upperman and Stone Memorial earning victories over Cumberland County and White County.

Upperman 8 Cumberland County 4

The #1-seeded Upperman Bees opened Thursday’s tournament action with a come-from-behind victory over Cumberland County, 8-4.

A two-run Isaiah Shelton home run in the top of the fifth inning gave the Jets a 4-2 lead before Upperman rallied with two outs in the bottom of the inning to score 6 runs.

Alec Wilson scored via a wild pitch to kick off the rally followed by a Karsen Holroyd single and back-to-back errors from the Jets to give Upperman an 8-4 lead.

The Bees shut out Cumberland County over the final two innings as Juju Llano earned the victory on the mound with 7 strikeouts in 6 innings.

Upperman will play next on Saturday against #2 seed Stone Memorial at either 10 a.m. or 12:30 p.m. Cumberland County will face DeKalb County in the losers’ bracket at 4 p.m. on Friday.

Stone Memorial 5 White County 1

A three-run first inning paved the way for the Stone Memorial Panthers on Thursday as they defeated White County en route to a 5-1 victory.

Lefty pitcher Titus Bisbee earned the victory for Stone Memorial as he struck out 5 batters while allowing 1 hit and 1 walk in 5 innings of work. Griffin Templeton closed the final two innings with 4 strikeouts in the win.

The Panthers opened the contest with a Gage Eldridge RBI single to score Templeton, a Bisbee sacrifice bunt to score Talyn Hurd and a wild pitch to bring Eldridge home to take a 3-0 lead after one.

Stone Memorial tacked on to their lead in the bottom of the fourth as a Templeton triple to center scored two runs, giving the Panthers a 5-0 lead. White County got on the board in the top of the sixth inning via a wild pitch to make the final score 5-1 in favor of the Panthers.

Up next for Stone Memorial in the winners’ bracket is a showdown with #1 seed Stone Memorial on Saturday at either 10 a.m. or 12:30 p.m. White County falls to the losers’ bracket and will face Livingston Academy at 7 p.m.