Last call

Last call

Searcy slams Marion at home

Sports Editor Marion is down to its last chance to qualify for this season’s state baseball tournament.

Searcy invaded John Robbins Field yesterday afternoon and left with a 91 victory that clinches the No. 2 seed from the 6AEast for the Lions, and leaves the Pats in a dead heat with Mountain Home for the third, and final, postseason spot in Sheridan.

Marion (3-23 overall, 3-10 7A/6A-East, 1-4 against 6A-East) watched Searcy score six times in the game’s first two innings to seize control of the game from the jump.

Searcy’s Bryce Bartlett, a University of Central Arkansas commit, claimed the win for the Lions after going five innings, limiting Marion to a pair of hits and a single earned run. He walked five Pats and struck out eight.

Peyton Moore made his last appearance at John Robbins Field and pitched five innings, allowed seven hits and six earned runs while taking the loss.

Collin Carpenter entered in relief and pitched the final two innings, allowed three runs on three hits and struck two out to finish the game for Marion.

Three of those runs were plated in the first inning, and all came with two outs on a pair of extra-base hits. Searcy (14-5 overall, 9-4 7A/6A-East, 3-2 6A-East) tacked on three more runs in the top of the second on a massive three-run home run from the left-handed-hitting Adrian Hannah, a junior.

That 6-0 lead held until the bottom of the third when Marion dented the scoreboard on a Jackson Wiggins run thanks to a wild pitch.

Searcy added the final three runs of the game in the top of the sixth when the first four Lions reached base and scored on a single, a sacrifice fly and a double. Marion has now lost four consecutive 6A-East games after winning its opener in the league, 2-1 against Mountain Home.

Despite that losing stretch, Marion is still very much alive for a berth in the state tournament.

With a win on Friday in Searcy, Marion would move to 2-4 in the 6A-East, and would make it to the postseason if Mountain Home loses to Jonesboro.

The Pats and Bombers split their regular season series, with each winning by one run at home. The head-to-head series is the first tiebreaker, and the second is margin of victory against one another.

If Marion and Mountain Home both win, or both lose, then the tie will be broken using the third tiebreaker procedure which will utilize the “all winning conference game runs, with a maximum of five runs per game.” Mountain Home would win that at the moment as the Bombers and Pats are both 3-9 in the 7A/6A-East, but Mountain Home picked up a pair of maximum five-run wins against West Memphis. Marion also swept West Memphis, but did so by only four runs in each game.

First pitch on Thursday in Searcy is scheduled for 4:30 p.m.

By Chuck Livingston