Russell Hedges
rhedges@bossierpress.com
The Airline Vikings can win at least a share of the District 1-5A baseball title tonight with a win over Parkway.
After losing to the Panthers 8-7 in 11 innings Wednesday at Airline, the Vikings defeated Parkway 2-1 Thursday to improve to 17-16 overall and 10-4 in district.
Game 3 is at 6 tonight at Airline.
Airline is tied with Byrd, which defeated Haughton 12-4 Wednesday and 8-0 Thursday in the first two games of their series.
If the Vikings win and the Jackets lose, Airline is the outright champ. If both win, under LHSAA rules they are co-champions. If Byrd wins and Airline loses, Byrd is the champ.
In Game 1 Wednesday, the Vikings took a 7-4 lead into the seventh inning but Parkway scored three to send it into extra innings.
Dylan Whaley and Austin Averitt had singles and the Panthers took advantage of a couple of Vikings errors to tie it.
Matthew Scotten led of the 11th for Parkway with a single. Courtesy runner Peyton Donaldson advanced to second on Dylan Randall’s sacrifice and scored on Demetrius McAtee’s single.
Carson Vaughn had a solo home run for the Panthers, and Tyler Schilling had a triple and two RBIs.
Airline’s Jarrett Bamburg went 2-for-5, including a triple. Tanner Daniel also had two hits.
Thursday’s game at Parkway was a pitchers’ duel between Airline’s Kyle Backofen and Parkway’s Rob Harper.
Backofen allowed three hits and struck out 11. Harper allowed seven hits and struck out nine.
Schilling had two hits for the Panthers. Peyton Davis and Tanner Daniel had two hits each for Airline.
The Vikings took a 2-0 lead in the fifth. Daniel and Cameron Taylor had back-to-back singles, and Daniel scored on Bamburg’s sacrifice fly.
At Haughton Wednesday, Seth Ryan went 2-for-3 with four RBIs for the Bucs. John Tomb and Triston Carmack had two hits each.
At Byrd Thursday, six different Bucs had hits.
Elsewhere, Benton won two games, knocking off host Southwood 8-2 Tuesday and routing North DeSoto 16-1 in five innings Thursday at Benton.
The Tigers improved to 25-8 overall and finished District 1-4A play 11-1. They close the season Saturday at home at 3 p.m. against Ouachita Christian.
Jordan Shaffer went 3-for-4 with two triples against Southwood. Aaron Henigan struck out 14 in six innings.
Aaron Sheppard allowed just two hits and struck out six in the North DeSoto victory.
