Madison Central evens series with Germantown with 11-1 win

MADISON — How would Madison Central respond?

After committing six errors in a Thursday night loss to Germantown, the Jaguars bounced back behind the pitching of Mississippi State signee Austin Tommasini and a big fifth inning to beat the Mavericks 11-1 in a six inning, 10-run rule game on Friday night in Game 2 of their Region 4-6A series.

Madison Central (10-6, 1-1 Region 4-6A) will travel back to Germantown (9-5, 1-1) in Game 3 of the series on Saturday at Noon.

“We’ve been up and down and it’s kinda funny, I called Chris Lemonis three days ago on how to handle the hangover of the year we had last year and he said 'Well we’re going through the same thing,'” said Madison Central coach Patrick Robey. “We play well at times and subpar at times, but the thing about this team is when we’ve had an off night such as last night, we’ve responded well.”

It didn’t take long for the Jaguars to get on the board, as Gatlin Sanders delivered a RBI double to right center and then later stole home to give Madison Central a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the first inning.

Germantown’s lone run came in the top of the third inning, as Cameron Hill had a RBI groundout with the bases loaded to cut the Madison Central lead to 2-1.

The Jaguars extended the lead to 4-1 in the fourth on a RBI single to center by Chase Russell and a RBI triple by Rhett Gandy.

Madison Central then scored six runs to extend their lead 10-1 in the bottom of the fifth inning, highlighted by a solo home run by Mississippi State signee Ross Highfill and a two-run single by Sanders.

Beau Bryans had two hits to lead Madison Central offensively and scored the final run of the game on a wild pitch to give the Jaguars the ten-run rule win.

“Austin was great on the mound and we had production from the bottom of the lineup with big two out hits and we were able to score and add onto the lead,” Robey said. “Short term memory is good in baseball and unlike last night we were able to get out of jams. This is a playoff type setting with three games in three days and hopefully we can carry this momentum into tomorrow.”

Tommasini tossed a complete game two-hitter allowing just one run, walked five and had eight strikeouts.

“I was able to come out and dominate with the fast ball, cause the breaking stuff wasn’t working much,” Tommasini said. “We obviously didn’t play well last night and tonight we played like we’re suppose to play.”

Cameron Hill (0-1) took the loss on the mound for Germantown.

“Their backs were against the wall and they had to do what they had to do to win tonight. Give them credit,” said Germantown coach Brian Hardy. “This is a playoff type setting with Game 3 being at home and it’s going to be fun.”