Ferriday &8212; Huntington leads the Class A state championship series 1-0 by defeating the Eagles of Porters Chapel Tuesday night, 5-4.

&8220;Tonight is what state championship baseball is all about,&8221; Hounds head coach Mitch Ashmore said &8220;They put pressure on us, we put pressure on them and every inning was tough.&8221;

Huntington center fielder Richard Steele made the play of the game and may well be the play of the series with an incredible diving catch to end the game and save the tying run from scoring at third. There were two outs, and Moose Carney hit a high fly ball into right center.

The speedy Steele came in like his life depended on it and snagged the ball right before it hit the ground.

&8220;I gave it everything I had,&8221; Steele said &8220;I was going to pile into anyone who was standing there. I was just going for it.&8221;

&8220;The catch that Steele made at the end was everything he had,&8221; Ashmore said.

The Hounds drew first blood by scoring two runs in the second inning. Huntington took advantage of an error made by Eagle catcher Spencer Pell after Hunter Norwood got caught in a run down on the third base line.

Pell threw the ball low past the third baseman, which ended up rolling into right field. Brant Bradley then hit into an RBI fielder&8217;s choice to score Landon Willard and put the Hounds up 2-0.

Huntington scored again in the third after catcher Ples Arthur smashed an RBI double to the right field wall to score Phillip Washington.

The Eagles tied the ball game up in the third after Carney scored on a pass ball. Then Brady Towne hit a RBI sacrifice fly ball to right field to score Hayden Hales. Spencer Pell then ripped a RBI double down the right field line to score Dan Ivey to make it a 3-3 ball game.

Washington, who went 3-3 on the night, wasn&8217;t giving up that easy as he took back the lead for the Hounds when he hit a RBI single to score Bradley from second. Steele then also hit in what would be the game-winning run when he hit an infield RBI single to score Zack Brown to make the game 5-3.

Porters Chapel didn&8217;t go away by inching closer in the fifth inning after Carney hit an RBI sacrifice fly to score Michael Busby to make it 5-4.

Huntington pitcher Trey Brasher had a solid outing and seemed to come up big when the pressure was on the most. He managed to have six strikeouts on the game.

&8220;Their pitcher did a great job keeping us off balance,&8221; Eagles head coach Randy Wright said &8220;They wanted it more than we did, and they just whipped us.&8221;

&8220;Every time we make a mistake, we seem to bounce back and do something positive and that&8217;s been the telling tale about our ball club,&8221; Ashmore said. &8220;Winning this game takes a lot of pressure of us for the series.&8221;