Black Knights fall to Marshall

Black Knights fall to Marshall

WMCS will be second seed in North State tournament

Sports Editor Entering yesterday’s game against Marshall Academy, West Memphis Christian stood a good chance of winning a regular-season district title with a win, and a No. 1 seed in the North State tournament if they won by two runs or more.

Unfortunately, Marshall Academy ace John Harris had other ideas. Harris spun a complete game four-hitter at the Black Knights, clinching the No.

1 seed for themselves in next week’s tournament with a 12-1 victory.

Harris worked all seven innings while allowing those four hits. The righthander struck out 11 West Memphis Christian batters while walking just four.

Second-year West Memphis Christian head coach tipped his hat to Harris, but was disappointed in some of the things he saw from his own team.

“He was pretty good, but he was setting the pattern.

He’d throw a fastball, then a curveball, and that’s what I told our guys,” Cordell explained. “But we were as flat as can be, we’re playing for a championship and our kids act like it’s no big deal. They just weren’t ready to play. That’s what winners do, they find a way to win. They have me baffled.”

While Harris was effective on the hill, he also reached base three times, scored a run and drove a run in with the bat.

The Patriots scored the game’s first 12 runs before the Black Knights tallied their run in the bottom of the seventh when Matthew Baker walked and scored on seventh-grader Brady Holloway’s double to left field to avoid the shutout.

Marshall Academy struck for three runs in the third and one in the fourth off of West Memphis Christian starter Parker Benson.

Benson hurled four innings, allowing eight hits and those four runs, but only two of them were earned. Benson was tagged with the loss.

Sophomore Cole Wann relieved Benson and finished the game. Wann worked a perfect sixth inning, but Marshall was able to put the game out of reach with a six-run seventh inning that featured four hits and five walks issued by Wann in that stanza alone.

“It’s frustrating when you see the talent that we’ve got and we just throw it away,” Cordell says. “We aren’t aggressive on the field. We do things that make me shake my head.

We’re stealing on our own out here down 4-0, down 6-0, down 11-0. It’s just stuff that don’t make a ton of sense.”

The previous game between West Memphis Christian and Marshall was a thriller that the Patriots won 2-1 last month. As a result of this outcome, the Patriots will be the No. 1 seed in the North State Tournament and the Black Knights are No. 2.

It will be West Memphis Christian’s first appearance in the North State tournament since 1996.

From there, the Black Knights will play to advance to the Class AA state tournament, and then the Overall State Tournament.

West Memphis Christian will open its run at that tournament on Monday, April 25. The site has not yet been determined.

By Chuck Livingston