photo by Ben Hillyer

Matt Barnes hurls the pitch toward home plate during the Trinity Episcopal Saints 12-1 win over Huntington School in Ferriday Monday evening.

Early lead gives Saints momentum in win over Huntington

By Jeff Edwards (Contact) | The Natchez Democrat

Published Tuesday, February 26, 2008

FERRIDAY — The Trinity Episcopal Saints jumped out to an early lead and never looked back as they got a win in their opening baseball game of the season.

The Saints took a 4-0 lead in the top of the first inning and cruised to an easy 12-1 win over the Huntington Hounds.

“It was good to see us get the early lead in our first game,” Trinity coach Matt Mason said. “It helped us relax and play good solid baseball tonight.”

The Saints (1-0) got some clutch two-out hitting to take that four-run lead in the top of the first.

With two outs and two on, Matt Barnes hit an RBI single to plate Trinity’s first run. Jordan Dossett followed that up with a double that scored two more and Wells Middleton hit a single that scored the fourth run.

That was all the run support Barnes needed on the mound.

The Trinity hurler kept the Hounds at bay, allowing just three hits and one run in 4 2/3 innings of work.

Matthew Freeman came in and pitched the final 1 1/3 innings in relief.

“It was a great first outing for Matt Barnes,” Mason said. “I was also pleased with the way Matthew Freeman pitched in relief. He’s playing basketball and has had limited practice time but he came in and gave us a good outing.”

It was quite the opposite for Huntington.

The Hounds (0-2) used four different pitchers without much success.

Shaky defense didn’t help them much either.

Trinity scored its fifth run on an error in the second inning and added another one on a wild pitch in the fourth.

Two more Saints runs came to the plate in the fifth, thanks to a Kent King RBI single and a Clint Easom sacrifice fly.

Trinity closed the scoring with four runs in the top of the sixth.

Five walks, two hit batsmen and a wild pitch allowed the Saints to score all four runs without the benefit of a hit.

Huntington’s only run came on a Drew Loomis single in the bottom of the fifth.

“Trinity played a lot better than us in every phase of the game,” Huntington coach Mitch Ashmore said. “We don’t even resemble a ball team. We’ve got to go back to the drawing board and start playing better, much less winning a game.”

Dossett was 2-3 with a double for the Saints while King was also 2-3.

Jody Cottongin collected two of Huntington’s three hits in the game.