Lowery’s game-one walkoff earns split

A comeback victory in game one helped Mt. Pleasant earn a split in their Southeast Conference openers on Thursday night against Ft. Madison. Clayton Lowery hit a walk-off single in game one to steal a 3-2 win. Ft. Madison won game two, 5-2.

Bryce Anderson started game one for Mt. Pleasant and gave up just two runs in almost a full seven innings. Ft. Madison scored one in the first and on in the second to take a 2-0 advantage.

Mt. Pleasant scored a run in the bottom of the fifth when Chase Williamson scored on a wild pitch. He reached base with a one-out single.

The Bloodhounds left the bases loaded with two outs in the top of the seventh inning. Jaxon Hoyle came in to relieve Anderson and struck out the batter to get out of the jam.

Williamson led off the bottom of the seventh inning. He hustled out an infield single to get on base. Corbin Broeker followed with an infield single of his own, putting two on with no outs.

Two batters later, Lowery came up with two on and one out. A two-base error by the Bloodhound catcher on an attempted pickoff of Broeker allowed Williamson to come around to score, and put Broeker on third. Lowery came through with the big hit, dunking a single into shallow right-center field.

'Our kids played pretty well that game,” Coach Brent Broeker said about game one. 'we had a few errors that we probably won't have later on. Swinging it wise, we're just not there yet.”

Broeker went 3-4 witha run scored to lead the offense in game one. Williamson was 2-2 with two runs scored. Anderson gave up just three hits over his six and two-thirds innings, but Hoyle earned the win with the final out in the seventh.

Nik Coble started game two and threw five shutout innings, striking out nine batters in the process. The Panthers and Bloodhounds were scoreless through four frames, but Coble plated Williamson with an RBI-single in the bottom of the fifth to put the Panthers up 1-0.

The Panther bullpen struggled in game two. The Bloodhounds scored three runs in the sixth inning to take a 3-1 advantage. Williamson knocked in Trace White in the bottom of the sixth, cutting the lead to 3-2, but the Hounds put up two insurance runs in the top of the seventh and Mt. Pleasant stranded two in the bottom half.

Williamson led the offense, going 1-3 with a run scored and an RBI. Coble was 1-3 with an RBI. Lowery was tagged with the loss, throwing one-third of an inning and giving up three earned runs. Hoyle and Broeker also saw the mound in the later innings.