By Stan Caldwell
stanmansportsfan.com
PURVIS – Call Pass Christian baseball anything you like – upstarts and underdogs chief among them – but you can also call the Pirates potential giant killers in the Class 4A playoffs.
Friday night at Tony Farlow Field, Pass stunned Purvis with a five-run rally in the top of the seventh inning, turning a 4-2 deficit into a 7-4 victory that puts the defending 4A state champions one loss away from elimination.
The Tornadoes (21-7 overall) will try to keep their season alive in Game 2 of the best-of-three game series at 7 p.m. Saturday at Pass Christian and bring the series back to Lamar County for a deciding third game on Monday.
“We’re going to see what we’re made of,” said longtime Purvis head coach Tony Farlow, who has guided the Tornadoes to four state titles. “Season’s on the line.”
The Pirates improved to 10-18 overall, but the record doesn’t fool anyone. Pass lost its first 10 games this season – including a 16-1 defeat at Purvis in February – but since then the improvement has been profound.
“It’s been fun watching this group grow up,” said Pass Christian coach Ricky Smith. “We’ve got a bunch of sophomores and other young kids. And we struggled early.
“But they’re not rookies anymore. They’ve played enough games to where they’re experienced, and it showed tonight. We came up here early in the season and they just boat-raced us. We’ve grown since then.”
Pass Christian was the beneficiary of four Purvis errors, including two in the decisive seventh inning.
But the Pirates also helped themselves with a solid pitching effort from sophomore Wesley Jolley, who came on in relief after junior starter Brenden Necaise went out in the third inning with an arm injury.
“It’s just an impingement in his shoulder,” Smith said. “We’re going to look at it when we get back and see if there are some things we can do to help him get back in case we need him.”
Jolley (3-5) went four innings, gave up two runs on four hits, struck out two and walked two.
The Tornadoes’ generosity began in the first inning, when two errors produced an unearned run off Purvis senior right-hander Eli Lowe.
Lowe got two quick outs to start the game, but an infield error allowed Necaise to reach, then Jolley followed by squibbing a dribbler into no man’s land between third base, the pitcher’s mound and home plate for a 40-foot single.
A throwing error allowed the runner to score from second and put runners at second and third. Lowe got out of the jam with a strikeout, but the inning showed Pass wasn’t intimidated by Purvis’ pedigree.
“I think we are underdogs, but we’ve really come together the past few weeks,” said Pirate sophomore Kayleb Munsch, who had the key hit for Pass in the pivotal seventh inning. “We’re all playing as one, and we’re doing great.”
Purvis answered immediately. Junior Jo Jo Parker led off by jerking a double inside the bag at first base that rolled to the rightfield corner.
Necaise got an out, but junior Jacob Parker reached on an error and scored on a double into the gap in left-centerfield off the bat of sophomore Hudson Walker. A walk loaded the bases, and Purvis was poised for a big inning.
But Necaise got off the hook, getting a ground ball for a force out at the plate and a flare to second for the third out. The inability to finish innings has plagued Purvis at times this season, and it was an issue Friday night, as the Tornadoes left 11 runners on base.
“It’s been kind of the same-old, same-old for us offensively,” said Farlow. “We just can’t open anything up. We let teams hang around.
“But you’ve got to give Pass Christian some credit. We beat them 16-1 early in the year, but now they’re playing pretty darn good baseball. They came up here with some scrappiness, put the ball in play and did what they had to do to win.”
Purvis took the lead in the third, when Jacob Parker drilled the first pitch of the inning into the rightfield corner, and Walker sent the next pitch into leftfield for a solid single, with Parker taking third.
Necaise got a strike on the next batter then gestured to the Pass dugout for assistance. After throwing just 35 pitches, Smith said Necaise could pitch on Monday if his arm checks out and they need him for a Game 3.
“If we can do a couple of things to make sure he’s healthy, then he should be available Monday if we need him,” Smith said. “We won’t let him get hurt.
“Our original plan was to start Evan, who pitched the seventh, on Saturday. So, we’ll go back and look at our pitch counts to see where we are, then figure out a way to compete (Saturday).”
Once Jolley had gotten all of his warmup pitches in, he helped himself by getting a double play on his first pitch of the inning.
That allowed the run to score, but it also emptied the bases, which rendered the triple off the bat of junior Cannon Turner that followed harmless when Jolley got a groundball out to end the inning.
Lowe cruised through the second, third and fourth innings, but he ran into trouble in the fifth.
Junior Aiden Mitchell, the 9-hole hitter in the Pirates’ batting order, drew a leadoff walk, then senior L.J. Jaynes smoked a ball into the rightfield corner, driving in the run on the triple. Jaynes cost his team a run, though, when he slid past the bag at third and was tagged out.
Lowe allowed a four-pitch walk and that brought Farlow out of the dugout to make a change, Jacob Parker coming in from centerfield to pitch.
“We felt like Eli was getting kind of tired,” Farlow said. “We felt like Jacob had a chance to strike a bunch of people out, and he did that. But we did some things defensively to hurt us. We made four errors tonight, and they cost us.”
Parker did his job, getting two strikeouts after allowing a single to the first batter he faced. He struck out two more in the sixth and appeared on his way to his fifth victory of the season when the Tornadoes put up two runs in the bottom of the sixth.
With one out, Lowe dropped a bunt down the third base line for an infield single, stole second and went to third on a single by senior Austin Lawler.
Freshman Preston Cooper put a bunt down the first-base line for a safety squeeze to drive in the run and a sacrifice to move the runner into position to score the second run of the inning when junior Ethan Walker singled up the middle.
Mitchell got the seventh-inning rally started for Pass Christian by singling up the middle to lead off. Parker appeared to get a double-play ball, but the ball was booted. The Tornadoes then got the lead runner at third on a failed sacrifice for the first out of the inning.
A hit batter loaded the bases, and again, Parker got a ground ball for a potential game-winning double play, and again, the ball was dropped, resulting in a run that made the score 4-3.
Munsch followed with the play of the game, pulling a double inside the bag at third base, driving in two runs.
“I was just trying to get something started,” said Munsch. “The team really needed it. I saw a pitch I liked and went with it. I was looking fastball away, something to hit to the right side and move the runners over.”
A walk loaded the bases again, and eighth-grader Landen Necaise poked an RBI single into rightfield, followed by a run-scoring sacrifice fly to centerfield off the bat of senior Evan Anderson.
“I filled it up in the fifth, but I didn’t get the job done in the seventh,” said Parker. “It’s on me. I didn’t throw enough strikes.”
In 2 2-3 innings, Parker (4-1) allowed five runs, none of them earned, on three hits, he struck out five, walked one and hit one.
Anderson, coming on for the save, made things interesting after getting two quick outs in the bottom of the seventh by walking three straight batters. But with Jo Jo Parker standing on deck, Anderson induced a pop-up to end the game.
“We’ve learned to compete,” said Smith. “We don’t give away at-bats, and we play a full 21 outs. It’s been a process to teach these guys how it works, but, man, they have learned it, and we’re playing really, really good right now.”
Farlow said Jo Jo Parker will start for Purvis on Saturday, and if the Tornadoes stay alive for Game 3, he’s got several good options for a game Monday.
“Ethan Walker’s been pitching really good for us,” Farlow said. “So, if we don’t have to use him to stay alive tomorrow, he’ll be who we go with Monday.”
PREP BASEBALL LINESCORE
Class 4A Second Round
Game 1 (Best-of-3)
Friday at Purvis
Pass Christian 7, Purvis 4
Pass 100 010 5 – 7 8 2
Purvis 101 002 0 – 4 8 4
PASS CHRISTIAN (10-18): L.J. Jaynes 3B; Brenden Necaise 1B; Wesley Jolley 1B; Kayleb Munsch 2B, 1B; Landen Necaise 1B; Evan Anderson 1B; Aiden Mitchell 1B. WP – Wesley Jolley (3-5). Save – Evan Anderson. Also pitching – Brenden Necaise (starter).
PURVIS (21-7): Jo Jo Parker 2B; Ethan Walker 1B; Jacob Parker 2B, 1B; Hudson Walker 2B, 1B; Cannon Turner 3B; Eli Lowe 1B; Austin Lawler 1B. LP – Jacob Parker (4-1). Also pitching – Eli Lowe (starter).
Photos courtesy of Van Tyner
