High school baseball: Haughton, Benton open season with victories; Parkway comes up just short against Calvary

The Haughton Buccaneers and Benton Tigers won season baseball openers Tuesday.

The Bucs downed St. Mary’s 9-2 at Northwestern State’s Brown-Stroud Field in Natchitoches. The Tigers routed Bossier 19-1 at Benton.

In another opener, the Parkway Panthers came up just short in David George’s debut as head coach, falling to Calvary Baptist 4-3 at home.

At Northwestern State, Mason Simmons, Hayden Hensley and Jathon Patton had two hits apiece to lead Haughton. Nick Heckman had a two-RBI triple.

Heckman, Austin Clemmens and Jayson Nitz combined on a four-hitter. Heckman allowed two hits and struck out six in three innings. Clemmens also allowed two hits in three innings. Nitz didn’t allow a hit in the final inning.

At Parkway, the Panthers scored a run in the bottom of the seventh to cut the Cavaliers’ lead to one. Parkway put a runner on first with two outs but a strikeout ended the game.

Derious Bradford had two of Parkway’s seven hits. He tripled with one out in the seventh and scored on a groundout to second.

Four Parkway pitchers allowed just three hits, but the Panthers committed five errors. Starter Parker Stevens allowed just one hit in four innings. He struck out four and walked only one.

Parkway scored a run in the first. Bradford led off with a single, moved to second on Bryan Day’s sacrifice and scored on Eric Brown’s line drive single to left field.

The 1-0 lead stood until Calvary scored two in the top of the fifth with a two-out double. The Cavaliers added a run in the sixth to make it 3-1.

Caleb Reese led off Parkway’s sixth with a single and scored on Matthew McKee’s double to make it a 3-2 game. Christian Rayner struck out the first two Cavalier batters in the seventh, but two errors led to a run and a 4-2 lead.

At Benton, Benton’s Keagan Rogers, Drew Haynes, Kade Bailey, Andrew McPherson and Cade Paddy all pitched one inning and combined on a no-hitter with 12 strikeouts.

Garrett Hable went 3-for-4 with a double and four RBI. Peyton Long and Cameron Ross had two hits and two RBI each.

The Tigers led 8-0 after three innings and then added 11 in the fourth.

NOTE: The above report is based on information on the teams’ official GameChanger accounts.

— Russell Hedges, rhedges@bossierpress.com