Friday's GIAA championship day: Frustrating for FPD, fantastic for Gatewood

By Michael A. Lough

The Sports Report

centralgasports@gmail.com

          The same team that scored 19 runs in two games last week couldn’t come close to that when it mattered the most.

          FPD was held far below its average for the second straight day, and lost 3-2 to Brookstone in the clincher for the GIAA Class AAAA championship.

          Brookstone topped FPD in two for the second straight year.

          The five runs in two games was FPD’s lowest total since losing 11-1 on March 1 to Stony Brook and 3-1 to AA champ Gatewood five days later.

          Brookstone took some control with three in the third inning against starter Wyatt Waters, on two doubles and an inside-the-park homer (when FPD outfielders lost the ball in the lights), with no outs. But Waters suffered no more damage, surviving two two-out walks.

          The Vikings finally got going with a pair of two-out runs in the fifth, after the first three batters reached, on an error, walk and single.

          Harrison Keenan singled in two runs, but FPD left three runners on.

          But the night belonged to Brookstone’s pitching duo of Luke Lowery and Brannen Neal.

          Lowery left in the fifth, and finished with one strikeout and five walks, while Neal finished it with five strikeouts and two walks and only one hit.

          Waters had a solid night, with five strikeouts and four walks in a six-hitter. But the Vikings managed only four hits, and wasted those walks and a whopping five Brookstone errors.

          FPD left the bases loaded twice, and stranded 10.

Photo: GIAA

Gatewood rolls to third straight

          The suspense lasted two innings.

          Then Gatewood went off for five runs in the top of the third and cruised to a 10-2 win Friday over Southwest Georgia to repeat – again – as GIAA Class AA state champs.

          Gatewood finishes 24-9, Southwest Georgia 24-5.

          The Gators outscored the Warriors 18-3 in the two games.

          Ames Johnson went 3 for 4 to lead Gatewood

Jayden Moss and Lawson Moore each had 2 hits with 2 runs and 2 RBI, and Drew Love added 2 hits.

          Walker Roberts went the first 6 innings and struck out 5 with 2 walks while giving up 6 hits. Lawson Moore finished it off.

          Johnson brought in John Wallace Thomspon and Hunter Johnson with a 3-run homer to spark that third inning and put Gatewood up 3-0. The Gators added a run on Jayden Moss’s double and an error on Roberts’ grounder, and then another on Moore’s double to right.

          That was more than enough for Roberts.

          Gatewood more than put it away with four I the sixth, on four singles, a walk, a wild pitch and a double

          The game was stopped for awhile because of weather, only delaying the inevitable.