For 25 games and half of the 26th, Southside baseball coach Dale Harpenau was at a loss for the words.
Friday, he must have looked to the heavens after Jake Melton launched a towering drive about 30 yards to the left of center fielder Jake Rincon with a look of disbelief. As the ball scrapped up against the fence, Mac Moody — the trailing runner who had singled home two runs to tie the game moments earlier — hit third base like a locomotive trailing downhill to give Southside a 5-3 lead.
The Mavericks, however, were just getting started on the way to an 11-3 victory at Forsgren Field.
Southside (8-17) will face face Har-Ber on Thursday in the first round of the 7A state baseball tournament at 2:30 p.m. at Bentonville West.
“I knew he (Melton) got it over his head and we had a little momentum on our side at that time,” Harpenau said. “We talk about it all the time; hitting becomes contagious. All of the sudden we strung three or four hits together, and we’re doing something we haven’t done all year — and that’s put up a crooked number.”
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Mason Love started the inning with a single to right. He stole second and scored on the second of Daylen Depriest’s three hits — a ringing single to center.
Later, after Hauken Smith walked, Kinner Brasher blooped a single to left and Brock Thibodeaux was plunked in the back to load the bases, Moody followed with something he and his teammates have failed miserably at this year — a two-run single to right.
Melton’s two-run triple made it 5-3, and Matt Schilling reached on an error to extend the lead to 6-3. Dylan Bryant’s RBI single gave the Mavs a 7-3 lead, and Depriest and Smith followed with RBI singles for a 9-3 lead.
Moody later capped explosing with an RBI single to left.
Northside built a 3-0 lead after four by scoring once in the first and twice in the fourth. Max Frazier beat out an infield single to open the first and one out later Grant Johnson blooped a single to right.
Hunter Linam then drove in Frazier with a grounder to third for a 1-0 Grizzlies’ lead.
Northside padded its lead in the third when Linam doubled over right fielder Smith’s head to make it 3-0.
While Brasher, who pulled a hamstring hustling out a grounder Thursday, got stronger as the game progressed, Frazier hit a wall in the fifth.
“He wasn’t a hundred percent today with the hamstring, but his arm felt good,” Harpenau said. “He went out there and gutted it out. You want to give the ball to a senior with the season on the line, and he did exactly what you expect him to do.”
“It (hamstring) was bothering a little, but I had to be there for my team,” Brasher said. “Not necessarily that they needed me, but I needed them more.”
Like Harpenau, Brasher was in awe on Melton’s triple, the big hit that’s eluded the team most of the season.
“It got everyone into the game,” he said. “We have trouble with the dugout (getting excited) sometimes, but once you get the momentum you don’t want to quit. And as a pitcher, you know you have some insurance runs to help you out a lot.”
