After getting off to a blazing 8-0 start to the fall baseball season, the Colbert Leopards ran into problems last week in the form of rival Calera in dropping a 12-2 decision in the early area showdown.
Calera junior Logan Bumgarner yielded a couple of hits and three walks in the opening stanza as the host Leopards plated two runs before the righthander settled in.
The Bulldog ace went the distance on the mound, striking out 10 and allowed only three hits following the early Colbert flurry.
Canon Marr posted a double and Kaden Neill also singled for the Leopards to fuel the two-run charge before Calera mounted its comeback.
Spurred by a Lex Carlton single, the Bulldogs got one of those tallies back in the second frame and another in the third to tie it after Cody Langley singled, stole second, and scored on a Bumgarner hit.
Calera went ahead for good in the fourth stanza on Zayden Craige’s two-out double to right and he scored on an error four pitches later.
That’s how things remained until the sixth inning when the Bulldogs sent 14 batters to the plate and accounted for eight runs to put the game away.
Hazyn Applegate doubled in one run with Langley’s home run knocking three. Carlton also chipped in a two-run single while Craige contributed his second hit of the inning that knocked in another run.
In total, Calera produced eight of its 13 hits for the game in that decisive sixth inning outburst.
Craige tallied four hits with two runs scored and two more batted in. Langley chipped in two hits and three RBI, Carlton had a pair while driving in two and Bumgarner also checked in with two hits. Jerran Varner, Talon Rose and Applegate all tossed in one hit.
Marr finished with two hits in leading the charge for Colbert as Neill, Brett Parsons and Hudson Brigman all tossed in one hit.
