Photo by Erin Nelson Sweeney
Mountain Brook’s Caleb Barnett (9) pitches during an area game against Homewood at Homewood High School on Friday, April 12, 2024. Photo by Erin Nelson Sweeney.
The Mountain Brook High School baseball team earned a split with Oxford on Thursday evening in the first two games of the Class 6A quarterfinals, forcing a decisive third game.
Hoover fell twice to James Clemens in the 7A quarterfinals, ending the Bucs season.
Mountain Brook led for the first four and a half innings of the opening game of the series, played at Oxford High School, before the Yellow Jackets put together a big fifth inning to win 6-5.
The Spartans jumped on the board with three runs in the first inning, as Bennett Love and Sam Estes drew back-to-back walks with the bases loaded, before Paul Barnett’s single made it 3-0. Mountain Brook added single runs in the third and fourth to open up a 5-0 lead.
Oxford exploded for six runs in the fifth and held on from there. John Robicheaux was stellar on the mound for the first four innings, but exited in the fifth and was charged with four runs allowed on just two hits.
Despite the loss, the Spartans responded with another strong effort in the second game, winning 4-2, even with Oxford loading the bases and scoring a pair of runs in the seventh before Kenneth Diddell slammed the door shut with a strikeout to end the game.
Mountain Brook once again struck first in the first inning, as Estes walked with the bases loaded to bring home a run. Paul Barnett drew a bases-loaded walk of his own in the third inning to give the Spartans a 2-0 edge.
Caleb Barnett had a tremendous game, hitting a two-run home run to extend the lead to 4-0, in addition to throwing six strong innings on the mound. He got into the seventh, but a walk and single to lead off the inning put an end to his evening. He struck out 11 in a clutch performance.
Ty Shotts got two outs and Diddell came in to record the final out of the contest.
The third game of the series will be played at 5 p.m. Friday.
Hoover fell to James Clemens twice Thursday, falling 10-8 and 8-5.
In the first game, the Bucs grabbed a 4-3 lead after three innings, before a six-run fourth inning gave the Jets the lead for good. Hoover chipped away, adding three runs in the sixth and bringing the tying run to the plate in the seventh.
Six Bucs drove in a single run in the contest, with Jaxson Wood and Baylor Hardy each putting forth multi-hit games in addition to driving in runs.
In the second game of the series, Hoover grabbed the early lead with a pair of runs in the first inning, and the game was tied 3-3 after three innings. James Clemens pushed five across over the fifth and six innings to pull away. Andy Howard and Will Adams each hit home runs and drove in two runs in the game.
