Madison Central baseball continues thrilling postseason run
Madison Central baseball fought back to take a 6-5 game one win over Tupelo on Tuesday night, moving one win away from a state championship appearance.
After falling down 5-0 in the third inning, Tupelo had all the momentum and Madison Central seemed to be on track to going down 1-0 in its semifinal series.
However, the Jaguars started to chip away, scoring three in the bottom of the third, adding one in fourth, and then scoring two runs on the same wild pitch in the bottom of the sixth to take the lead, before closing it out in the top of the seventh to earn a crucial first win in the series.
“The first three innings obviously weren’t what we wanted and Tupelo came out hot,” Madison Central Head Coach Patrick Robey said. “But our guys just kept playing and kept fighting and that’s what you have to do for seven innings and 21 outs.”
A major reason for the Madison Central win was the pitching performance of Gavin Parrow, especially in the last few innings. After giving up five runs in the first three innings, Parrow settled in and threw three shutout innings, allowing the Madison Central offense to chip away at the lead and eventually complete the comeback. Parrow also finished with six strikeouts on the night.
“Gavin (Parrow) has been that guy we want on the mound for us all year,” Robey said. “No one’s perfect and he’s had some starts this year where he’s gotten into some trouble early, but he’s a competitor and he battled tonight. I’m certainly proud that he was able to keep competing and give us a chance to get back in it.”
On offense for the Jaguars, Warren Hutchinson led the way with three hits, Landon DeSlatte added two hits, and Boggan Foster, Addison Jayroe, and Walker Robey added one hit to the total.
These two teams are very familiar with each other, being region rivals, which should make for the rest of the series to be extremely competitive, just like game one.
“Tupelo is a very good team and Tupelo is a tough place to play,” Robey said. “We have been a pretty good road team this year, but we just want to make sure all of our guys are resting up and ready to go for the rest of the series.”
Madison Central will be guaranteed two opportunities to clinch a spot in next week’s MHSAA 7A state championship series. Game two is set for Wednesday night at 7 PM at Tupelo, with results unavailable at print time. Game three, if necessary, will be on Thursday at Madison Central, with first pitch also set for 7 PM.