Zac Rinehart and Brian McGrath each had three hits, including one apiece in the winning five-run rally in the sixth inning, as Brookwood defeated Lassiter 11-6 on Wednesday to gain a split in a first-round Class AAAAA baseball series between ranked teams.
Lassiter (21-8), ranked No. 4, won the opener 3-1 as Parker Shank pitched a complete game and allowed eight hits.
The deciding Game 3 will be played at Lassiter at 6 p.m. Thursday.
Brookwood (23-8-1), ranked No. 6, let a 6-1 lead escape in the second game, but blew the game open again in the sixth, the decisive blow a deep two-run home run to right-center field by Nick Moore, also a star on Brookwood’s state champion football team.
Brookwood’s Luke Sims was the winner in relief. The shortstop came in to pitch after Lassiter had scored two runs in the sixth inning to tie the game 6-6 and had a runner on third with one out. Sims struck out Reed Anthes and Andy Reif in the middle of Lassiter’s order.
In the final inning, Sims walked the first two batters, then struck out the final three batters, including Georgia signee Nelson Ward for the final out.
In the bottom of the sixth, Brookwood’s Trey Hagey singled, and Trey Martin walked with one out against K.J. Sinclair, who had pitched three previous scoreless innings. Hagey then stole third, and catcher Anthes’ throw was in the dirt and bounded into foul territory. Martin, the speedy leadoff hitter, scored from first, and the score was 8-6.
“We were just taking chances,’’ Brookwood coach Rick Howard said. “When you’re the home team [batting last at Lassiter], you can do that.’’
Later, hits by McGrath and Rinehart and the homer by Moore sealed it.
‘’We’ve been in this situation during the year, and there were times when we didn’t come through,’’ Howard said. “But this is a tight-knit group, and they depend on each other.’’
Anthes, who has signed with Duke, had three hits in the doubleheader, but also three throwing errors in the second game.
In the opener, Lassiter’s Shank came within an out of pitching his second shutout of the state playoffs. He beat Peachtree Ridge 1-0 in the first game of the first round.
With two outs, Brookwood strung together three hits and scored a run before Shank got cleanup hitter Rinehart to ground out to first base.
Lassiter scored three runs in the fifth inning to break a scoreless tie as Cornell Nixon (single), Anthes (double) and Reif (single) had key hits off Brookwood starter Jacob Beauchamp. Beauchamp had eight strikeouts in a complete-game loss. Reif was 3-for-3 in the opener and had four hits in total.
“Brookwood got to do the celebrating because you remember the last thing that happened,’’ Lassiter coach Scott Kelly said. “I just told our guys to remember we won Game 1. We did what we had to do.’’
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