The Haughton Buccaneers, Parkway Panthers and Benton Tigers posted wins on the first day of the Monroe-area Trey Altick Classic on Thursday.
Haughton edged East St. John 3-2 in 10 innings at Ruston, Parkway downed Natchitoches Central 9-2 at Natchitoches and Benton nipped 2016 Class 2A state runner-up St. Charles Catholic 2-1 at St. Frederick.
The Airline Vikings fell to Baton Rouge Central 7-1 in their opener at Neville.
The Trey Altick Classic features 66 teams from Louisiana and Arkansas competing over four days at 17 sites.
At Ruston, Haughton’s Austin Clemmens scored the winning run on Nick Heckman’s two-out single in the bottom of the 10th.
Clemmens reached first on an error, advanced to second on Jonathan Plant’s sacrifice bunt and went to third on Jathon Patton’s groundout.
Mason Simmons had a RBI double in the Bucs’ two-run fifth. Hunter Harlan scored on a passed ball with two outs.
Starter Heckman struck out nine in five innings. Jayson Nitz got the win, allowing just one hit and walking only one over the final five innings.
Haughton (3-4) faces St. Amant at Sterlington at 3:15 p.m. Friday.
At Natchitoches, George Booras pitched a complete game, striking out 12 and allowing six hits as Parkway improved to 4-1 under new coach David George.
Eric Brown went 3-for-3 with two doubles and two RBI. Caleb Reese had two hits and two RBI. Derious Bradford also had two RBI.
The Panthers face Pineville at 8 p.m. Friday at Ouachita Christian.
At St. Frederick, Cole Horton and Garrett Hable had two hits each in Benton’s victory. Will Hine gave up just one hit in five innings and struck out seven. Kade Bailey got the win in relief, pitching two innings of no-hit ball and striking out three.
St. Charles Catholic took a 1-0 lead in the top of the first. That’s the way it stood until the Tigers pushed two runs across in the bottom of the sixth.
Sam Simmons led off with a walk, advanced to second on a Horton single and reached third on Cameron Ross’ sacrifice bunt. Simmons scored on an error and J.T. Brice, running for Horton, moved to third. Hal Gatti’s line-drive single to center field scored Brice to make it 2-1.
Benton (6-2) plays Sylvan Hills at 3:15 Friday and Central at 5:30. Both games are at Neville.
At Neville, Airline had trouble getting anything going at the plate against Central. The Vikings had just two hits. Pitchers Chase Hodges and Jake Hodges allowed only two hits each, but they combined for six walks. The Vikings also hurt themselves with four errors.
Airline (3-3) plays St. Amant at 8 Friday at West Monroe.
— Russell Hedges, rhedges@bossierpress.com
