CA surges past Bulldogs

The Cornersville Bulldogs had to settle for a split of the regular season series with District 11-A rival Columbia Academy, as they suffered a 9-2 road loss to CA on Tuesday after defeating the Maury County private school 7-1 the previous day.

Columbia Academy (6-7, 3-2 District) grabbed the momentum early and tallied four runs in the bottom of the second inning to take a 4-0 lead. CA then plated five more runs over the next four innings to forge a 9-0 advantage before Cornersville (8-6-1, 6-2 District) crossed home plate twice in the top of the seventh thanks to a two-run single by Jonathan Douglas for the 9-2 final.

Relying primarily on his curveball, Columbia Academy starting pitcher Caleb Pitts kept the Bulldogs off balance at the plate and limited Cornersville to just four hits and a walk in seven innings of work while racking up 10 strikeouts en route to earning the victory.

Cody Blackburn, Joe Stocstill, Neil Davis, and Douglas each singled for the Bulldogs with Blackburn also drawing a walk.

CA, meanwhile, swung hot bats the entire game and finished with 13 hits and a walk against three Cornersville pitchers to go along with three hit batsmen and three Bulldog errors.

"I don't want to say it was all us because Columbia Academy is a good team. Their pitcher threw well and we swung at a lot of bad pitches that put us in bad situations at the plate," said Cornersville coach Ben Putman. "When you make that many mistakes it's hard to overcome. I'll give the guys credit though because they kept playing hard and kept composure after we fell behind."

CHS starting pitcher Matt Callender suffered the loss on the mound, yielding four runs on seven hits and a walk over one and two-third innings to go along with one strikeout.

First baseman Hunter Tyree spearheaded CA's offensive attack by going 3-for-4 with a homerun, 2 RBI, and two runs scored. Bryant Pratt and Keith Gray both recorded two hits and a RBI for Columbia Academy as well, while Nick Hayes had a hit and drove in two runs.