With a bases-loaded, one-out situation staring him in the face, it was time for McComb senior pitcher Trey Terrell to decide.
“It was either do or die. It was either going to be a win or a bad end to a good game,” Terrell said. “I knew I had to buckle down and bow my neck.”
Terrell answered those questions by retiring the final two Forest Hill batters and preserving the Tigers’ first victory of the season, 7-6 over the visiting Patriots on Friday at the McComb baseball stadium.
McComb (1-6 overall, 1-1 in Region 5-5A) entered the top of the seventh with a seemingly comfortable 7-4 lead. Terrell seemed in complete control after striking out the first batter in the seventh. But the Patriots got an infield single, two walks and a hit batsman to pull to within 7-5.
Forest Hill’s Justin McDonald then hit a dribbler out in front of the mound. Terrell immediately fielded the ball, but his low throw home allowed another run to score and close the gap to 7-6.
“The bases were loaded and I was nervous,” said Terrell, following his first start of the season. “But my team stood behind me and encouraged me.”
The right-hander responded by forcing Dillon Jaque to foul out to third baseman Marquel Carroll, then struck out the Jamarkis Holmes on a 1-2 curveball to end the game.
“We played a complete game,” McComb coach Brian Eby said of the Tigers’ victory. “We cut down on our little mistakes.
“The inexperience is gone,” Eby said. “They have no more inexperience excuses. Those are gone.”
Terrell looked anything but inexperienced through the early innings. The hard-throwing righty retired the first nine Patriots in order, six by strikeout. In fact, Terrell fanned five of the first six batters he faced and got the other three on weak grounders back to the mound.
After stranding runners at second and third base in the first inning, the Tigers jumped out in front in the second. With two out, Carroll blooped a single to left field, stole second and scored on Jake Simpson’s double to deep right field.
McComb built an early lead in the bottom of the third. Terrell led off with a single that got past the Forest Hill left fielder for an error that allowed Terrell to move to second. He went to third on a passed ball and scored when Adrian Brown laced a single to left for a 2-0 advantage.
One out after Dominic Cotton’s sacrifice bunt advanced Brown to second, consecutive two-out doubles by Alex Woodall and Walter Jordan made it 4-0.
Forest Hill finally got to Terrell in the fourth. A walk, bloop single to left, passed ball and McComb throwing error allowed two runs to score, pulling the Patriots to within 4-2.
Terrell got out of a bigger inning with the help of his defense. After another walk put Forest Hill runners at first and second with nobody out, Carroll snagged a line drive and tossed to second baseman Simpson to double off the runner. Another single and a double steal put runners at second and third with two out. But Terrell struck out the next batter to keep the lead intact.
McComb’s lead went to 5-2 in the fourth when Kecarderius Wells tripled to the left-field fence and scored on Terrell’s infield groundout.
Terrell once again found his back against the wall when the Patriots put runners on second and third with two outs in the top of the fifth. Forest Hill’s Dentel Mitchell hit a bouncer to third, where Carroll made a backhanded stop and threw across the diamond to first baseman Woodall, who came off the bag and into the basepath, where he tagged Mitchell to end the inning.
Mitchell and his head coach argued that Woodall blocked Mitchell’s path to the first-base bag, but game umpires turned down their appeals. Mitchell continued to dispute the umpire’s call when he took the mound for the bottom of the inning, and was told any further discussion would lead to his ejection.
Eby called the situation “just two competitors that made a great play.”
Trailing 5-2, Forest Hill pulled closer in the sixth. A leadoff walk and two stolen bases put a runner on third with nobody out. One out later, an RBI bloop single to left made it 5-3.
After another single put runners on first and third, a botched pickoff throw to first allowed a second run to score and pull the Patriots to within 5-4.
Terrell knuckled down and struck out the next two batters to escape the inning. He finished with a six-hitter. He walked six and struck out 12.
The Tigers tallied two key runs in the sixth. With one out, Carroll was hit by a pitch, moved to second on Simpson’s sacrifice and scored when Well’s grounder to second base was misplayed for a two-base error to make it 6-4. Wells went to third on a passed ball and, after a walk to Terrell, scored on Brown’s single to right that extended the lead to 7-4.
