Editor’s Note: South Panola lost the first game of the third round to Madison Central 11-1 Friday night. They will play game 2 at home Saturday afternoon at 2 p.m.

By Brad Greer

Fear the beard.

Five weeks ago, Mitchel Babb vowed not to shave his facial hair until the South Panola baseball season had ended. Turns out Babb will have to wait at least two more games before using shaving cream and razor.

In a deciding game three against Horn Lake, Babb tossed a four-hit complete game shutout as the Tigers advanced to the 6A North State semi-finals for the first time in school history with a 1-0 win over the Eagles Wednesday afternoon at Horn Lake.

South Panola (22-9) visits second ranked Madison Central (27-1) tonight at 6 p.m. in the first game of a best-of-three series. Game two will be scheduled for tomorrow at 2 p.m. in Batesville while game three, if necessary, will be Monday at Madison Central.

The Tigers gave Babb all the run support he would need in the top of the first as South Panola scored its only run of the game. Leadoff hitter Chris Townsend deposited the first pitch of the contest into right-center for a triple.

Babb then followed with a sacrifice fly into right to drive in Townsend. The rest of the night belonged to the senior right-hander as he struck out nine while walking one on 106 pitches. Babb (8-3) did not allow a hit until the fifth inning when Andrew Yeager blooped a single into shallow right.

“We knew it was going to be tough having to come back up here. Both games we had played were close and we knew this one was not going to be any different,“ said Babb. “They have a good-hitting ball team and the only thing we did tonight was pitch them inside more. I had to focus and bare down on every pitch because one mistake could have cost us the game. God has his hands on this team for some reason,” said Babb.

Horn Lake, (12-11) left runners on second in both the fifth and sixth innings as Babb wiggled out of trouble by getting Cody Reed to fly out in the fifth and retiring Eagle pitcher Mac Cooley by grounding out to end the sixth.

South Panola blew a golden opportunity to add to their lead in the sixth as they loaded the bases with no outs, but failed to get a runner home as Hunter Durham struck out. Lee Self, who led off the inning with a double, was forced out at home followed by a Tays Hardy groundout to end the inning.

Horn Lake last gasp came in the bottom of the seventh as Yeager and Kenneth Grady reached on a pair of singles with two outs, but Babb slammed the door on the Eagles’ season as Reed grounded out to Townsend at short to end the game.

South Panola tallied six hits in the game as Townsend added a single to his triple while Self added a double and single. Andrew Horne chipped in with two bunt singles.

South Panola head coach Patrick Robey talked about his teams’ mental toughness that was one of the contributing factors in the victory.

“You can not win games like the way we have been doing lately without character. Our team has showed that we have a lot of that these past few weeks. I thought the kids were focused on every pitch tonight and that is what you have to do in close games. We cleaned up our defense tonight and did not make an error. We knew hits as well as runs were going to be hard to come by. Mitchel threw another outstanding game for us tonight and his focus not just tonight but the whole season has been incredible” said Robey.

“We talk all the time about winning every pitch and I thought the kids were into every pitch and every out,“ said Robey.