The Cascade Champions handily defeated the Cannon County Lions, 13-6, in the District 9-AA opener for both teams in Woodbury, Tennessee, on Monday night.

In what was a rematch of a sub-state matchup from a season ago, the Champions’ high powered offense was able to accumulate 12 hits that turned into nine earned runs. Leadoff hitter Jordan Childress and catcher James Magee each had a three-hit night with Sawyer Lovvorn getting two hits of his own.

Walker Craig went five complete innings, striking out a season-high nine hitters. He only gave up four hits to go with four walks, and only two of the four runs scored with him on the mound were earned. 

Cascade’s offense jumped on the Lions starter Garrett Crawford immediately with Childress singling to right field on the fourth pitch he saw. After Lovvorn popped-out in foul territory, the next five Champions reached safely, with Logan Green driving home two runs on a single to right field and James Magee driving home another on a single to left. 

Cascade sent 13 hitters to the plate in total, and after Crawford issued a two out walk to Childress to load the bases, the Lions moved him out to center field and brought in Eli Morris to try and get out of the inning. After a walk to Lovvorn drove in the Champions’ sixth run of the inning, Morris settled down and struck out Craig to mercifully end the inning.

Craig finally came out as the starter on the mound for Cascade, and after he struck out Jon-Anderson Bryson to leadoff the inning, AJ Armstrong took Craig deep to center field to get a run back for the hosts. The Champions’ ace settled down afterwards, dealing a pair of strikeouts sandwiching a two-out walk to end the inning. 

Morris shut down the high-powered Cascade offense until the fifth, throwing three consecutive no-hit shutout innings. This allowed his offense to slowly chip away at the visitor’s lead, pushing across one run in both the third and fourth inning to trim the Champions’ lead to 6-3. 

Cannon County almost added two more runs in the fourth to make it a one-run game, but after Armstrong was initially ruled safe on an extremely close play at first base on a slow grounder to Childress at shortstop, the umpires ruled him out after discussion. The Lions were understandably upset, but despite a lengthy discussion between innings, Armstrong was still ruled out.

That play must have galvanized the Champions’ bats, because after being held in check by Morris, they knocked him out of the game with four runs in the top of the fifth to push their lead up to 10-3. 

Craig loaded the bases in the home half of the fifth after an error allowed one run to score for the Lions, but the Champions’ starter struck out Landon Smith looking on his 104th pitch of the night to leave all three runners stranded and take a 10-4 lead into the sixth inning.

After Eli Pelham put up a zero for the Lions, Zach Crosslin came in to get the last six outs on the mound for Cascade, and he did just that, tallying four of the six outs by way of the strikeout. He only gave up two hits, but one of those was to Ben Kauffman in the bottom of the sixth on a two-run home run after Crosslin issued a walk to Armstrong. 

Cascade’s bats would add three insurance runs in the top of the seventh, and Crosslin then put up a stress-free zero in the home half to close out the Lions, 13-6, to pick up the first district win of the season and sixth win overall.