Kyle Parmley
Mountain Brook Baseball
Mountain Brook head coach Lee Gann is shown in a game earlier this season.
MOUNTAIN BROOK -- Mountain Brook High School’s baseball team saw double Friday night. Or doubles, actually, and too many of them.
James Clemens smacked eight two-base hits over the course of the Class 7A first-round playoff doubleheader, including three in one inning, as they swept the host Spartans by scores of 9-5 and 5-2.
It wasn’t so much a case of sub-standard play by Mountain Brook, according to coach Lee Gann. They just ran into an opponent playing at the top of its game.
“We just played a really good ball team,” Gann said. “(James Clemens) has got players through the lineup that could hurt us, and they did. It wasn’t much of anything we did or didn’t do, but it’s what they did. They played two great games, and you’ve got to tip your hat to them.”
The Jets broke the first contest open with four runs in the third inning, highlighted by a bases-loaded double that cleared the bags and chased Mountain Brook starting pitcher Andy Hanaway off the mound.
The Spartans stayed close behind for most of the first game and facing a 5-3 deficit in the bottom of the fifth inning, they put the first two batters on base and forced the exit of James Clemens starter Laken Lansdell. But reliever Zach Toth got out of the jam with three quick outs, and the home team never threatened again, despite a seventh-inning solo home run from Parker Garrison and a triple from Thomas Graham.
The Jets scored twice in the fifth off a Connor Cantrell double and a balk. They added two more in the seventh to put the game out of reach, thanks to a two-RBI double by Dylan Kridner.
Spartans designated hitter Colton Yeager was 3-for-4 at the plate with a double and two runs scored.
Lansdell, the winning pitcher for James Clemens, recorded his first six outs on Mountain Brook strikeouts; he allowed three earned runs on five hits plus three walks. Hanaway was tagged with the loss in 2 2/3 innings of work, allowing four earned runs on four hits, with two strikeouts and three walks.
In the nightcap, Mountain Brook’s normally-proficient defense had missteps that proved costly, as James Clemens scored its go-ahead runs on an errant overthrow of a play at first base in the bottom of the fourth inning. That allowed Jets runners to come home from second and third.
In total, the Spartans committed three errors.
“Defensively, we played a very clean game in Game 1. Not so much in Game 2,” Gann said.
After the teams traded runs in the first inning (with an apparent homer down the third base line by the Jets’ Tommy Crider taken away and called foul after umpires conferred about the original call), the visitors moved ahead when Lansdell’s base hit scored Crider in the third. Mountain Brook tied the game again when Tyler Imig, who reached base on a hit-by-pitch, stole second and then scored on a ground out by Phillip Bethea in the top of the fourth.
Collin Brown drove in the final run with a double for the Jets in the seventh, scoring Austin McGhee.
James Clemens starter Jackson Reece kept the Spartans in check with six solid innings, allowing six hits and two runs with no walks, a hit batsman and two strikeouts. Reliever Tyler Legere closed out the game with a 1-2-3 seventh inning. Mountain Brook starter Garrison, who has battled injuries this season, was taken out with one out in the fourth after experiencing some sort of ailment. Bo Meadows relieved Garrison, as his submarine delivery frustrated Jets batters. Meadows allowed one hit and had no earned runs. Hayden Bruno pitched the sixth inning, allowing a double and a run.
James Clemens (27-14-1) faces the winner of the series between Hoover and Hewitt-Trussville in the second round. Those teams split their opening doubleheader and will play a third game Saturday at 2 p.m. Mountain Brook finishes the season with a 24-12 record.
