Red-hot Brandon beats Pearl 15-0 in Game One of 6A South Quarterfinals

BRANDON — The Bulldogs couldn’t have asked for a better start.

Behind two big innings along with the pitching of K.K. Clark, Brandon raced past rival Pearl 15-0 in Game 1 of their MHSAA Class 6A Third Round baseball playoff series at Mark Vinson Field on Friday night.

Game 2 of the series will be on Saturday night at 6 p.m. at Pearl. If necessary, Game 3 will be back at Brandon on Monday at 7 p.m.

“Come out and jumped on them early, which is something we try to do, and put pressure on them,” said Brandon coach Daniel Best. “We ran the bases really well tonight and moved runners around on the bases and kept picking each other up and got in their bullpen.”

The Bulldogs (25-6) jumped out to a 6-0 lead in the bottom of the first inning highlighted by a pair of two-run singles by Clark and Kandin Williams. Wade Fulton also had a RBI infield single with the bases loaded.

Brandon tacked on five more runs in the bottom of the third inning to extend their to 11-0 highlighted by a two-run single by Hayden Sullivan.

The Bulldogs added four runs in the bottom of the fourth on a two-run single by Jonah Katsaboulas and a two-run home run by Mississippi State commit Jacob Keys.

“We did a good job tonight of staying ahead in the count and capitalizing and were aggressive on the bases,” Best said. “K.K. has been gaining confidence and has been really good for us all year and did a good job tonight of throwing strikes and got a lot of early contact. Now we still have work to do tomorrow to try to clinch the series.”

Clark (8-0), a Pearl River CC commit, tossed four innings allowing just one hit, no walks and struck out five.

“Came out with a lot of confidence and did what I wanted to do throw strikes and get outs,” Clark said. “Offense has been putting up a lot of runs for me and I still think we haven’t shown what we’re capable of and can make a deep run in the playoffs.”

Andrew Arrant (8-3) took the loss on the mound for Pearl. The Pirates fell to 20-11.

“We were beat from the start mentally,” said Pearl coach Brian Jones. “Give all the credit to them, they capitalized on our mistakes and it was constant snowball effect for us. We got to have pride tomorrow in order to try to get back here Monday.”