Mary Persons downs Howard for seventh straight win

The Mary Persons baseball team continued its strong play with a 7-2 win over Howard on Friday.

The Bulldogs capitalized on two early runs in the first inning and held the Huskies at bay defensively for the win.

Mary Persons moves to 13-5 overall and 4-1 in GHSA Region 2-4A play. Howard falls below the .500 mark to 7-8 and is 1-4 record in region play.

Three who mattered

Tyler Skelton: Skelton was a perfect 3-for-3, including an RBI double in the first inning to get Mary Persons started 2-0.

Trippe Moore: Moore batted 2-for-4 with an RBI double that stretched Mary Persons’ lead to 4-0 in the fourth.

Austin Benson: He pitched the entire game, allowing only two Huskies runs in the sixth. The Bulldogs’ pitcher struck out five batters, including the final out.

Turning point

It looked like Howard may begin its comeback after an RBI single by Zeyquan Mitchell in the sixth cut the Mary Persons lead to 5-2, but Mary Persons responded quickly. Aaron Mock had a double that scored two runners and extend Mary Persons’ lead to 7-2 in the seventh. The scores gave Benson some run support entering the bottom half of the inning.

They said it

Mary Persons head coach Clae Mathis: “Howard was really swinging. They’re tough outs. I’m proud of my guys. We’ve been scoring a lot of runs late, and we got some big two-out hits with runners in scoring position, and that’s the difference in this ballgame.”

Howard head coach Danny Slaughter: “We’ve got to choose our pitch selection that we swing at better and make sure we capitalize when we have runners on base. That’s been our problem all season — not capitalizing when we have runners on base. That’s why we’re in the position we are in the region now.”

This story was originally published March 17, 2017 at 10:23 PM with the headline "Mary Persons downs Howard for seventh straight win."