Monday sports page: Northpoint baseball victorious to open key district series
At the end of tomorrow night, the Northpoint Christian baseball team will either win its TSSAA 2-A district championship and top seed in the upcoming district tournament, or be in the middle of as many as a four-team chaos for the top spot that will need tiebreakers, such as run differentials, to line the teams up for the postseason.
Jayden Parker’s two hits and KL Farr’s eight-strikeout pitching were among the factors in the Trojans’ 3-1 victory over Lausanne Collegiate Monday night at Tony Gagliano Field in Memphis.
Parker, a 5-10, 170-pound senior center fielder, played the perfect leadoff man with two hits and scored two of Northpoint’s three runs in the win.
“He’s been working really hard and I think he saw the ball really well tonight,” said Northpoint coach Stephen Kirkpatrick. “He gets on base and he’s really a spark plug and knows how to score. He’s a really smart and savvy base runner, so to have him out there is really big for us.”
Farr, the Trojans’ main man on the mound, provided an 86-pitch complete game performance for Northpoint against the Lynx. Farr gave up six hits but fanned eight with no walks. Of Farr’s 86 pitches, 61 were strikes thrown by the Southern Miss commit.
After Parker singled to lead off the game, Farr’s base hit to left brought Parker home for the early 1-0 lead.
Farr’s sacrifice fly to right field in the third inning brought Parker home for a 2-0 Trojans’ lead. Parker’s lead off single to left opened the frame.
In the sixth, Northpoint increased the lead to 3-0 when Vail Perkins hit a double to the wall in right field that scored Isaiah Nolan, who got on base with a single to center to open the Trojans’ half of the inning.
Lausanne would score its only run in the bottom half of the sixth, but it would cost them two important outs on the scoring play. Emre Roan lined a fly ball that Parker caught in center field. Parker then threw to second baseman Jack Harrell who then relayed to Perkins. The ball came back to Harrell’s who tag of a runner provided the Trojans a double play. A run would score from third on the play.
But that would be all for the Lynx in the sixth, followed by Farr and the Northpoint defense shutting down the Lausanne offense in the seventh for the win. That defense was also aided by catcher Kaden Clayborn who shut down two Lausanne runners trying to steal second base.
“We did some really good things in all three phases tonight,” Kirkpatrick said. “Made some really good, heady plays at times in the field and offensively, we were able to do enough to win.”
That’s what the Trojans will try to do again Tuesday night when the teams meet at Northpoint, starting at 7:15 p.m. A Northpoint win will settle any question mark about who’s number one in the district and avoid the four-team chaos at the top of the district standings that could happen if the Lynx win.
SCOREBOARD
Monday, April 21
Prep baseball
- Northpoint Christian 3, Lausanne Collegiate 1
- Northpoint: Jayden Parker-2 runs, 2 hits. KL Farr-1 hit, 2 RBIs, 7 IP, 6 hits, 1 earned run, 8 strikeouts. Vail Perkins-double, 1 RBI.
