By Curtis Rockwell, Sports Editor
The Picayune Item
POPLARVILLE — Poplarville hung with perennial state power Hattiesburg for the first four innings of Thursday's game in the annual Hornet Invitational.
The visiting Tigers managed to shake loose in the last few innings, however, and cruise to a 17-7 win.
The loss drops the Hornets to 1-2 on the season and HHS now stands 2-1.
Hattiesburg took advantage of quite a few erros and quite a few walks issued by the Hornet hurlers in taking the win.
"We kicked the ball around way too much," second year Poplarville head coach J.J. Fortune said. "That and all the walks killed us. We just didn't play very well."
Despite the early miscues by the Hornets, the game ws tied 5-5 after three innings. Eli Frierson, Drake Hodges and Blaine Hebert all had RBI-singles for Poplarville, and Tyler Childs also drove in a run early in the game for the Hornets.
Maverick Smith also had an RBI-single for the Hornets later in the game, but the Tigers scored three runs in the fourth to take a lead they would never relinquish and then piled on nine more runs in the final three frames.
Smith took the loss for PHS, in relief of starter Jade Whitten.
Poplarville hosts Stone tonight at 6, then the Hornets meet the Tomcats again at 1 on Saturday afternoon before closing the tourney out by taking on Pearl River Central at 3:30.
