MADISON — It’s all about survive and advance in the playoffs.
The New Hope High School baseball team needed to score two runs in the sixth and seventh innings Monday night to rally past Germantown 8-5 in Game 3 of the third round of the Mississippi High School Activities Association (MHSAA) Class 5A playoffs.
New Hope (21-12) will face Region 2 rival Oxford for the Class 5A North State championship. Game 1 will be Thursday in Oxford. Game 2 will be Friday in New Hope. If necessary, Game 3 at will be Saturday in Oxford. All games will start at 7 p.m. The winner will advance to the best-of-three state championship series to face the winner of the series between Pearl River Central and Hattiesburg.
“Just happy for Drew Pounders,” New Hope coach Lee Boyd said. “He hadn’t played well and was able to come through big. We’ve preached all year bad things will happen, but how you react to those will make the difference and he did.”
Trailing 5-4 in the top of sixth, New Hope re-took the lead on a two-run single to center field by Pounders. Prior to the at-bat, Pounders was 0-for-2 with two fly outs and a sacrifice bunt.
“It was crazy,” Pounders said. “That’s baseball. Hit the ball hard but it goes straight to people, but I didn’t get down, so I bounced back and able to get line drive to center.”
In the top of seventh, Thomas Stevens added a two-run single to left field with the bases loaded to make it 8-5.
“Had two strikes and had to fight off pitches and was able to get a chopper that bounced through,” Stevens said. “It was a game you had to score just about every inning, and fortunately we did in the last two.”
Nick Sims (1-0) earned the win in relief.
Now it’s on to face Oxford, the two-time reigning Class 5A state champions. The Chargers beat the Trojans in two of the three regular-season meetings.
“Nick did a good job of pounding the strike zone,” Boyd said. “We’ve battled injuries on the mound all season and he was one (who was injured). Glad to see him get the ball and come through.
“We’ve played Oxford it feels like a million times. Over the last three years they’ve dominated us. They can absolutely swing the bats, pitch it well, and they’ve got home field, so we can embrace being the underdog.”
Matt Corder (0-2) took the loss. Eric Newsom had four hits to lead the Mavericks (25-9).
“It came down to who was going to get the big hit and they got it,” Germantown coach Brian Hardy said. “We’ve got a lot of guys coming back, so hopefully we can learn from this and try to keep going further in the playoffs.”
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