Sports Editor

The marathon men of Pike County didn’t quite have enough steam to pull out their third win in as many days Wednesday.

After downing county-rival Goshen 11-1 the night before, the Pike County Bulldogs couldn’t quite notch their first Area victory dropping a three-hour long contest to Dale County 15-12. The game saw the Bulldogs battle back twice to take the lead, but their final push in the bottom of the seventh came up just a few runs short.

With two runners in scoring position and the tying run at the plate, the Warriors struck out Chris Langston and Brian Kilpatrick in order to put the PCHS team to bed.

Dale County faced an 11-10 deficit coming into its half of the seventh and got a pop up to center to drop, then a double, a single and two more doubles all in order to score four runs and take an 14-11 lead.

Closer Jimmy Evans was able to strike out the next two, but the Warriors got another shot to right that fell and scored their final run before PCHS got the third out of the inning.

The dramatic finish to the game was hard fought for the Warriors. They had taken a 5-0 lead into the bottom of the third, but the Bulldogs took advantage of some pitching and fielding errors with two outs to put two on the scoreboard and load the bases on the Dale County starting pitcher.

DCHS yanked their left-handed starter, but Elijah Daniels got the job done at the plate anyway belting a hard shot to left center on a 1-1 count for a double that cleared the bases and knotted the score at 5-5.

The Warriors regained the lead in the top of the fourth 8-5 and to add injury to insult a hard hit ball straight back to the mound tagged starting pitcher Jonathan Tillery in the right arm. Tillery finished the play and made the out at first, but had to take a seat after the stinger.

Pike County put it right back on the Warriors in their half of the fourth taking a 9-8 lead on a two-run homer by Robby Price and a long shot by Michael Lowery that he tried to stretch into a triple, but was gunned down.

The Bulldogs extended their lead to 11-8 in the fifth off two straight doubles by Chris Nickson and Price then Dale County cut the lead to only one in their half of the sixth.

Pike County continues their marathon schedule today in a double header against Luverne on the road starting at 4 p.m. They will face Ariton at home on Friday and Goshen at Goshen Saturday to end their streak of seven games in six-straight days.