Colbert was able to bookend wins over county rival Calera and state tournament contender Latta in a solid week of baseball action for the Leopards that raised their record to 9-4 on the season.
Coach Zach Crabtree’s unit began the with a 5-2 triumph over Bryan County brethren Calera in a Class 2A Top 10 showdown. They then dropped a 10-4 verdict to second- ranked Byng in the Roff tournament opener before dispatching Roff (2-1) and Latta (6-3) to close out the event impressively.
In the Calera victory, Colbert rode the hot hand of senior pitcher Kaden Neill, who fired a complete game and struck out 10 Bulldogs. The righthander scattered six hits and three walks.
The visiting Leopards scored all the runs they would need in a four-run second inning flurry. Eric Hokett singled and Hudson Brigman doubled in front of RBI hits by Isaiah Lopez and Parker Nesbitt. A Calera error kept the inning afloat before Braxton Reese delivered the final two tallies with a double to rightfield.
Brigman doubled in a run in the third for a 5-0 edge ahead of the Bulldogs’ getting on the board following back-to-back doubles from Zaiden Craige and Jaron Varner.
Calera narrowed the gap with a Cody Langley solo home run in the seventh but never got the tying run to the plate thanks to a pair of Neill strikeouts.
Brigman posted three hits, including a pair of doubles, while Reese chipped in a pair and also drove in two. Brett Parsons, Neill, Hokett, Lopez, Nesbitt and Tucker Shields all had one hit.
Craige contributed two hits in leading Calera with one apiece from Logan Bumgarner, Varner, Maddux McCullar and Langley.
Colbert had to rally with runs in the seventh and eighth to topple Roff and erase a 1-0 deficit. Kenton Ladd and Nesbitt hits led to the tying run with Parsons adding the game-winner with an RBI single. Lopez recorded the pitching victory with nine strikeouts in sevenplus innings of work.
Parsons tossed six solid innings for the mound win against Latta, yielding five hits with three strikeouts.
The Leopards utilized late dramatics again by pushing across one run in the sixth and five in the seventh to overcome a 3-0 deficit.
Trevor Jackson contributed three hits, including a double, while Brigman posted a pair.
Calera bounced back from the Colbert defeat to claim two of three contests in the Roff Tournament and take third place.
The Bulldogs bounced Ripley (32) with a late rally, fell to Class A top-ranked Okarche (2-0) and then tagged Class B top-rated Calumet (6-0).
Langley’s one-out run-scoring triple in the sixth tied the game against Ripley before a walkoff RBI hit from Varner in the seventh. Bumgarner was stellar in four and two-third innings of two-hit scoreless relief to lift the Bulldogs. Craige tallied three hits with two from Hoff Weil.
Craige was the tough-luck losing hurler in the narrow loss to Okarche despite yielding only five hits as the Bulldogs only managed three.
They righted the ship against Calumet thanks to a splendid four-hit complete game shutout by McCullar as he fanned two and walked three.
The Bulldogs made the most of 10 hits, including three by Hazyn Applegate and two from Bumgarner, who also had a double. Demarcus Dunn chipped in one hit and knocked in a pair of runs.
