By Brad Greer
If any baseball team deserved a better fate than what was dealt to them Saturday night it would be South Panola.
Trailing 1-0 in a best-of-three North 6A opening round playoff  series to Clinton, Tiger starting pitcher Turner Rotenberry fired a masterful one-hitter but to no avail as the Arrows took advantage of six South Panola errors in route to a 4-2 victory thus advancing into the second round where they will face Region 1 champion Southaven.
“If this was a perfect world, we would have come out with the win tonight. You could not have asked for a better job than what Turner did on the mound. He gave it everything he had and then some. We just did not make the routine plays that needed to be made for us to win,“ said Tiger head coach Jake Mills.
Both teams left runners in scoring position in the first three innings as  Armani Lewis garnered Clinton’s lone hit in the first but was stranded at third. The Arrows put runners on first and second in the following inning with one out only to have Rotenberry strike out Colby Collier looking then get a ground ball out to end the threat.
South Panola meanwhile left runners on first and second with one out in the first and a runner on third with one away in the fourth. The Tigers registered seven hits on the night but stranded eight runners on base.
Clinton took a 1-0 lead in the fourth as Jake Clarke reached on a two-out walk before stealing second and scoring on a two- base error. South Panola tied the game at 1-1 in the fifth as Kyle Weaver delivered a two-out single to bring home coursity runner James Kyle Browning from second. Chris Casiday got the inning started by reaching on an error.
The sixth inning proved to be the Tigers downfall as Clinton capitalized on three walks and three errors to take a 4-1 lead. South Panola cut the lead in half  in the bottom of the frame as Casiday’s RBI single plated Jacob Fennel.
South Panola’s final gasp came in the seventh as they put runners on first and second with no outs. Weaver lined out for the first out  but as Chase Durham flied out to center, Cole Rotenberry who was on second tagged up and went to third on the play only to be called out for leaving the bag before the catch was made thus ending the game and season for the Tigers.
“People might look at our record (10-18) on paper as not very good but ten of our losses were by two runs or less and if there is one thing we always stressed to our team is play with passion and be competive and we did that,” said Mills.
Cole Rotenberry led South Panola at the plate with three singles while Weaver added two singles and a run driven in. Zach Hopper and Casiday added singles. Turner Rotenberry gave up four runs ( one earned) with seven walks and seven strikeouts on the mound.
Clinton 11, SP 6 (Friday)
 The Arrows took game one Friday in Clinton with eight unanswered runs after spotting South Panola a 6-3 lead in the fourth inning.
The Tigers grabbed a 2-0 lead in the first after loading the bases with no outs as Durham grounded into a double play to score Cole Rotenberry. Hopper followed with an RBI single to drive in Turner Rotenberry.
Clinton tied the contest at 2-2 in the bottom half of the inning with one swing of the bat as Walker Burchfield launched a two-run home run off South Panola starting pitcher Chase Durham.
South Panola retook the lead at 5-2 in the second on a throwing error and Durham’s two-run single that brought in Noah Willis and Turner Rotenberry. Clinton added a single run in the second while the Tigers plated its final run in the fourth as Turner Rotenberry legged out a double before stealing third and coming home on a throwing error.
The Arrows took the lead for good with four runs in the fourth, one in the fifth and three more in the sixth.
Turner Rotenberry registered a single and double while Durham added two singles. Hopper and Willis each singled with Nathan Herron contributing with a double. Durham took the loss by giving up eight runs on ten hits while waling five and striking out six in five innings. Anderson Wilder surrendered three runs (one earned) on three hits in .1 inning of relief before Herron fanned one batter in the sixth.