By Brad Greer

South Panola’s wild and sometimes wacky baseball season came to an end as the Tigers fell 11-1 in five innings to Madison Central in the North State 6A semi-finals Saturday afternoon at Tiger Field. The Jaguars won game one of the best-of-three series 11-1 in six innings Friday night at Madison.

Spencer Turnbull and Stanford Parks both homered and drove in a combined seven runs to spark Madison Central at the plate while junior left-hander Zach Irwin tossed a complete game one-hitter. Irwin, an Ole Miss signee, struck out 10 while walking one on 81 pitches.

Madison Central (30-1) will now take on the Tupelo/Northwest Rankin series winner for the North 6A State Championship starting Friday night. South Panola ended its season at 21-11

“I was real proud of the kids and what they were able to accomplish this season,“ said Tiger head coach Patrick Robey. “I told them after the game, especially the seniors contributed so much and we are going to miss each and every one of them. But the thing I wanted them to understand is we had two freshmen that played today and there were only four teams in the North 6A that were still playing today.

“For us to have a number of young guys including a good group of juniors and two freshmen, there is a lot of talent coming back next season,” Robey continued.

Madison Central jumped to a 3-0 lead in the first off Tiger starting pitcher Lee Self as Parks led off the game with a walk then scored on a Brock Hunt double. Turnbull followed with a towering two-run homerun in the following at bat. The Jaguars then tacked on three runs in the fourth and five  in the fifth, all after two outs, to put the game away.

In the fourth, Conner Goodspeed led off the inning with a walk then advanced to second on a balk.

Self then retired the next two batters before Parks slammed a two-run homerun over the left field wall. After Hunt reached on a error, Turnbull drilled a RBI (run batted in) double to drive in Hunt to make the score 6-0.

South Panola scored its only run of the game in the bottom of the fourth when leadoff batter Chris Townsend reached on an infield single then later scored on an error.

The Jaguars tacked on five runs on four hits off Tiger reliever Hunter Ivy as Parks and Irwin delivered a pair of RBI doubles. Ivy finished the game by pitching 1.1 innings while walking three and fanning two. Self (4-5) gave up six runs and five hits in 3.2 innings of work.

In Friday’s loss, South Panola managed six hits in the game as Self led the way with a pair of singles. Mitchel Babb added a double while Andrew Horne, Taylor Meek and Townsend all recorded singles. Hunter Durham (2-1) took the loss on the mound.