Madison Central edges Southaven 5-4 to punch ticket to MHSAA Playoffs second round

MADISON — Madison Central is moving on.

Behind a big first inning along with some timely pitching the Jaguars held off a late Southaven rally to beat the Chargers 5-4 in Game 2 of their MHSAA First Round Baseball playoff series at Jaguar Field on Friday night.

With the win, Madison Central (14-14) swept the series and advanced to face Oxford in the Second Round of the MHSAA Class 6A playoffs next week.

MORE: Updated 2023 MHSAA Baseball Playoff Brackets

“Reed gave us a chance to win and he has been really good pitching the last couple of weeks,” said Madison Central coach Patrick Robey. “Numbers show that the team that puts up a big inning wins about 80 percent of the time. We kinda held on for dear life at the end, but scoring those runs early was big.”

Madison Central jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the bottom of the first inning as the Jaguars scored two runs on two wild pitches and a sacrifice fly by Mason Winans.

Southaven (12-16-1) cut the lead down to 3-1 in the third on a bases-loaded walk by Carson Fair.

Madison Central responded with two runs in the bottom half of the inning to stretch their lead out to 5-1 on a RBI triple to Gavin Parrow and on an throwing error.

The Chargers cut the lead down to 5-3 in the fourth on a RBI single to right by Sam McClinton and Darian Johnson was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded.

In the fifth Carson Enlow hit a RBI single to left for Southaven to cut the Jaguar lead down to 5-4.

Southaven did put runners on base in the sixth and seventh to try to tie the game, but a run down between second and third base in the sixth and a strikeout by Chase Russell to end the game prevented that threat.

“I’m just so proud of our kids. We’ve had a lot of success the last three or four weeks and we weathered the storm and it wasn’t always pretty and kept playing together and playing hard,” Robey said. “Our pitchers have gotten a lot better and throwing more strikes. Now its onto Oxford and we know each other well, so it’ll be a fun series.”

Reed McCrillis got the win on the mound for Madison Central tossing three and two-thirds innings scattering three hits, three runs, walked six and struck out seven.

“We had a big lead early and having to keep persevering through it,” said Madison Central left fielder Thomas Nichols. “We’ve been playing well together late and playing well right now.”

Chapman Whatley (1-2) took the loss for Southaven. Caleb Parnell had two hits for the Chargers.

“Had seniors step up in a big way and if your going to go down you want to go down with those guys and I was proud of the fight they showed,” said Southaven coach Jeffrey Edge. “We had opportunities and didn’t capitalize tonight.”