By Brad Greer

South Panola wanted to use the Oxford Spring Break baseball tournament as a tune up for tonight’s 7 p.m. Region 2-6A home-opener against Tupelo.

But despite winning the first two games, losing 4-2 to Class 1A Biggersville Wednesday was not exactly how the Tigers wanted to prepare for the defending district champions.

South Panola, which entered the contest riding a five-game winning streak, failed to get the key hit  as the Tigers left nine runners on base including twice with the bases loaded.

The Tigers jammed the bases full in top of the seventh inning with one out off Biggersville starting pitcher Jake Johnson but all were left stranded  as Johnson struck out Wesley Gregg and Lee Self to end the game.

South Panola, (5-6), loaded the sacks full in the third but was again turned away as Johnson fanned Gregg and got Self to ground out to end the threat.

Biggersville got all the runs it would need in the top of the first off Tiger starting pitcher Colby Gammill as the Lions took a 3-0 lead on run-producing singles by Chip McNair and Ethan Estes. Gammill faced only six batters before being replaced by Andrew Horne with one out in the first.

South Panola put runners on second and third in the bottom of the second with one out but Johnson wiggled his way out of trouble yet again by fanning Luke Latham and Zach Horne to end the inning. Johnson struck out seven while scattering five hits to pick up the complete game victory on the mound.

The Tigers closed the margin to 3-2 in the bottom of the fourth on a pair of unearned runs as Ryan Maxwell reached on an error to lead off the inning. Courtesy runner Joey Gabbard then stole second and continued to third on Latham’s groundout. Zach Horne followed with a RBI single to left that plated Gabbard. One batter later, Mitchel Babb slapped a single into rightto score Horne.

The score stayed that way until the top of the sixth when the Lions added a huge insurance run on a Ben Sand two-out  RBI single that scored Johnathan Ragin from third.

Babb led South Panola at the plate with a pair of singles while Chris Townsend, Matt Hendrix and Zach Horne all singled.

Andrew Horne pitched a solid 4.2 innings in relief of Gammill by giving up five hits while walking two and striking out one.

Self fanned five while surrendering one run on three hits in two innings of work on the mound.