Baseball

BRENTWOOD – Brentwood Academy’s baseball team pumped up its offensive production and made the most of costly errors Friday night to take home a Division II-AA East/Middle regional win with a 10-4 victory over visiting Pope John Paul II.

“I’d say it’s the best (offensive production) we’ve had this year,” Brentwood Academy coach Buddy Alexander said. “We’ve not been very good recently. I think we just got deeper into their staff and started seeing it better and that’s contagious. That’s the best day we’ve had for sure.”

Friday’s win was the second in as many days for the Eagles and helped them take the three-game region series 2-1.

“I’d have left town with two wins without even playing if they had given them to me,” Alexander said. “We needed this bad.”

Pope John Paul II (19-7, 9-6) took a 1-0 lead in the top of the first, but Brentwood Academy (11-12-1, 7-8-1) responded by scoring four runs.

The Knights got back on the board with bases-loaded walk to Jacob Telli to make it 4-2 in the third.

JPII’s Logan Taylor picked up two RBIs with a pair of singles in the fifth and seventh inning, but Brentwood Academy added six runs between the third and sixth innings to put the game out of reach. Taylor finished 3-for-3 with three RBIs.

Clay Morrison and Kelton Reynolds finished 3-for-4 with two RBIs for the Eagles.

“I just wanted to stay aggressive but also stay patient at the same time,” Morrison said. “Make sure you work the count and help out your team.”

While Morrison was able to help the Eagles offense, Pope John Paul II didn’t help itself out on defense, finishing with four errors, four walks and several wild pitches and passed balls.

“We gave them 13 free bases,” JPII coach Michael Brown said. “We are a team that prides ourselves on throwing strikes and playing defense, but for some reason over the past two days we couldn’t throw it over the plate and we couldn’t field it.”

Reach Sam Brown at 615-259-8232 and on Twitter @SamBrownTN.