Southern Middle School opened its baseball season with a 6 5 victory over Elise Middle School in an exciting battle that went down to the wire. Elise began the attack with a first inning one out double down the first base line by Josh Lambert followed by a single from J. Allred and A. Bullard scoring Lambert for the first score of the game.

Southern Middle was unsuccessful in the bottom half of the first getting a lone double from Tristan Helms.

Southern Middle took over the lead in the second inning, leading off with a walk from Dylan Campbell. With two out and bases loaded after additional walks by Greg Mello and Ryan Smith, Matthew Lacher hits a single scoring Campbell. With bases loaded again after Charles Woodard draws a walk, Tristan Helms hit a long single to score both Mello and Smith to take the lead 3 to 1.

Elise scored another run in the fourth inning by T. Ross on a passed ball.

Southern Middle scored again in the fifth inning after Charles Woodard drew a walk and is batted in by Tristan Helms' double.

Elise Middle took the lead 5-4 in the top of the sixth by scoring 3 runs by C. Vaughn, E. Morrison, and T. Ross on errors which plagued the Southern Middle school squad.

Down 5-4 in the bottom of the seventh and last inning, Tristan Helms hit a one out double and is scored on a single from Ryan Bender to even the score. Dylan Campbell drew a walk moving Bender to second and stealing on a passed ball moved him to third. Tommy Baggett, entered the game for injured Tyler Coe at first, hit a game winning single to score Bender for the 6-5 victory.

Elise used three pitchers in the contest, Vaughn, Allred, and Lambert, to strike out 10 Southern Middle batters and walking only seven.

Tristan Helms was on the mound for Southern Middle pitching a complete game throwing 114 pitches while striking out 12 batters, walking three and allowing only four hits.