The Siloam Springs baseball team returned home Wednesday night after a successful trip to the Memphis (Tenn.) area to play in the Best of the West tournament held at several locations around the city.
The Panthers (6-5) finished 2-2 overall on the trip, but the team could have easily have been 3-1.
Siloam Springs rallied to beat Germantown (Tenn.) 8-7 in the opening game on Monday after falling behind 7-2 in the early innings. The Panthers fell behind Bolton (Tenn.) 4-0 later on Monday afternoon and rallied to tie 5-5 before losing 6-5 in the bottom of the seventh inning.
Junior Chandler Cook pitched a one-hitter on Tuesday night as Siloam Springs defeated Memphis University School 5-0 in six innings. The game was called in the top of the seventh after a power failure at MUS's stadium caused the lights to go out.
On Wednesday, the Panthers dropped their final game 10-2 to Covington (Tenn.).
"All in all, I'm happy," said head coach Alan Hardcastle. "Going in there and playing two in one day, it's tough to play on the road. Very easily should have been 3-1."
The highlight of the trip was easily Cook's performance against Memphis University School on Tuesday night.
The junior right-hander fanned 11 batters and only walked one in six innings of work.
"I thought that was pretty awesome, especially for Chandler," Hardcastle said. "Memphis University School was the best team we faced, but Chandler shut them down."
Offensively the Panthers led 1-0 in the fifth after Dodge Pruitt reached on an error and scored on a base hit from Kaleb Francis.
The Panthers then scored four in the top of the sixth to give Cook (2-1) a little breathing room.
Siloam Springs took advantage of a few walks to open the inning before Pruitt had an RBI hit followed by an RBI walk by Armstrong and two more runs scoring on wild pitches.
The Panthers' luck wasn't so good on Wednesday afternoon against Covington.
The Panthers fell behind 4-0 in the first two innings and got back to within 4-2 in the top of the third, but Covington answered with a pair of runs and then finished off Siloam Springs with four runs in the bottom of the sixth.
"This Covington team was rich in tradition, state championships, conference championships, well-coached," Hardcastle said. "That's the thing I
loved about this tournament, everybody had tradition. Covington could swing it. Everybody in their lineup top-to-bottom was a tough out."
Francis (0-1) was the losing pitcher against Covington.
The trip was also more than baseball. The Panthers got to explore Memphis some, including several restaurants in downtown Memphis, watching the ducks at the Peabody Hotel and visiting the Bass Pro Shop located in the Pyramid near the Mississippi River.
"When we go to Sheridan (for the 6A state tournament), we've got to be able to play on the road," Hardcastle said. "I want them to know what it feels like to stay on the road. I thought it was a good trip."
Up next
The Panthers are scheduled to play Maumelle at 6 p.m. on Monday at Arkansas Tech in Russellville. The Panthers are then scheduled to open 7A/6A-Central Conference play with a doubleheader at Little Rock Catholic on Friday.
Sports on 03/27/2016