Road trip brings out best in Central

Obion Central saved its best for last.
The Rebels — who’ve struggled throughout the regular season — erupted for 16 fourth-inning runs to blast Blytheville (Ark.) 18-7 in their regular season finale Monday afternoon.
OC (3-17) hopes to ride the momentum from that victory into today’s District 13AA Tournament play-in game at Westview at 4:30.
Another win would propel Central into the double-elimination portion of the tourney, where they’d play Dyersburg on Thursday. Today’s loser will see their season end.
Elsewhere on Monday, South Fulton dropped a 4-3 game to Halls — a decision that finalized the upcoming District 14A bracket seeding.
The Red Devils will be the seventh seed and will play at No. 2 Trenton Thursday in the first round of the postseason tournament that is a double-elimination affair.
Union City is the top seed — having gone unbeaten during regular season play — and will host No. 8 Humboldt 5 p.m. Thursday at Elam Stadium. Halls (No. 3) will play sixth-seeded Humboldt, with Greenfield hosting Bradford in a battle of 4 vs. 5 on Thursday.
The tourney will then move to Halls on Saturday.
The following is a recap of Monday’s action:
OC 18, Blytheville 7
The Rebels actually trailed 4-2 before exploding in the fourth when they batted around twice and scored most of their runs with two outs.
Mitch Arnett cracked a two-run homer and drove in four runs in all while scoring three times for the winners. Brady Chandler went 3-for-3 with three RBIs and two runs, while Colton Carr had two hits, scored twice and chased home a pair of runs.
John Foster, Jacob Hyde and Chase Starks all scored two times apiece for OC.
Carr started and picked up the pitching win with three innings of work, and then retook the mound to close out the game by getting the final three outs of the contest in the fifth.
All totaled, he gave up one earned run and struck out seven.
Blake Berner and Colton Easterwood both pitched in relief.
Halls 4, SF 3
The Red Devils’ late rally came up just short.
SF (10-16) scored twice in the bottom of the sixth to get within the final tally, but failed to push across the tying run in its final at-bat.
Tyler Morris went 3-for-4 with a single, double and triple, while both Ryan Prince and Aaron Hollingsworth both had RBI singles.
Austin Hazlewood is now 5-5 after pitching the first six innings and giving up eight hits and two walks to go along with all four Halls’ runs.
The junior righthander struck out six.
Prince finished up with a scoreless inning of relief, fanning two of the three batters he faced.

Published in The Messenger 4.30.13