Photo: Oxford catcher Sharpe Smith looks to the heavens for a foul pop off the bat of Lewisburg batter Cooper Bierman during Tuesday’s contest at Lewisburg. (Bob Bakken/desotocountynews.com)
Mar 25, 2025 – Some state high school baseball rankings in Mississippi have the Lewisburg Patriots baseball team at or near the very top, both overall and for the 7-A classification. The same baseball “experts” also have senior pitcher Talon Haley, a Vanderbilt baseball commit, among the top prospects for prep baseball talent in the state this spring. Haley’s fastball has been clocked as fast as 94 miles per hour.
Both were on display Tuesday night in the Patriots’ 9-2 shellacking of the Oxford Chargers in the first of a home-and-home set between the two Region 1-7A rivals. Game two is set for Oxford on Friday night.
The victory gives Lewisburg an overall record of 15-3 with all three losses coming to out-of-state competition.
Haley, despite nursing some oblique tightness, still struck out seven and allowed just two hits in five innings of mound work.
“I went to him before the game and said he needed to figure out how to pitch through it because we needed him,” head coach Tyler Scholl said after the game. “He went out there, changed his mechanics and pitched from the stretch for most of the game just for it to not bother him so much.”
Haley got support offensively in the Tuesday victory from 10 hits, including a solo homer from Colson Alexander and a trio of doubles, from Cooper Bierman, Grant Walendzik, and a third from himself.
After two scoreless innings, Lewisburg got on the scoreboard with three runs in the third, which would be all they would eventually need. But the Patriots added a run in the fourth and three more in the fifth. Lewisburg added two more in the sixth and had a potential third run on base. However, the inning ended before that run could score, the run that would have ended the contest three outs earlier due to the 10-run rule. The Chargers would score two runs in the seventh off reliever Deyton Tedder in a late comeback attempt.
“I’m really happy with where we’re at one-through-nine in the lineup,” Scholl said about his team. “I’m happy where we’re at defensively. I’m just trying to get some guys in on the mound that we’re going to need down the stretch for what we want to do in the next four-to-six weeks.”
Scholl, an assistant on a team that made a strong playoff run last season after winning a state championship the year before, now is leading the Patriots through what has been a successful season thus far. And Scholl said he’s not really surprised by that success.
“Early on in the year, the back half of the lineup was struggling a little bit with some guys who I knew would come around,” he said. “For us to win games, they’re going to have to do what they’re doing now. You always like to be playing like this moving into April.”
And about the lofty ranking from the state pundits? Scholl said his team is more concerned about their finish at the end of the year, hopefully with a trip to Pearl, Trustmark Park, and the state championship series. He also knows the opponents know how good Lewisburg baseball is and has been over the years.
“We have the reputation,” Scholl said. “The target is on our back from the start of the season and it has been over the years. That’s the kind of program we’ve built and the reputation that we have.”
Northpoint Christian 18, Harding Academy 2 (5 innings)
Northpoint: Casey Wheeler-3 RBIs. Isaiah Nolan-double. Landon Lay-triple. Pitcher Alex Love 4 IP, 7 strikeouts. Combined no-hitter with Ty Waller.
Prep softball
DeSoto Central 5, Lewisburg 2
DeSoto Central: Pitcher Colby Young-9 strikeouts. Londen Armstrong-triple, home run. Lady Jags 14-2 overall, 3-0 Region 1-7A.
Hernando 13, Southaven 0 (5 innings)
The Lady Tigers scored 7 in the fifth for the run-rule win, now 17-0. Hayden Hodge doubled, tripled. Hernando, unbeaten for the year, is ranked 18th in the nation, according to Maxpreps.
