By Brad Greer

After starting the Region 2-6A slate 0-2, the last thing the South Panola Tigers wanted to do was drop another game back of league leading Tupelo in the district race. Mitchel Babb and Chris Townsend made sure that was not going to happen Tuesday night.

Trailing Columbus 0-1 with two outs in the bottom of the fifth inning, Townsend crushed a 1-1 offering from Falcon starting pitcher Christian Dale over the left-center field wall for a two-run home run that helped propel the Tigers to a 6-1 win. South Panola (9-4; 1-2) tacked on four more runs one inning later for the final margin of victory.

The rest of the night belonged to Babb as the senior southpaw tossed a complete game on the rubber to improve his record to 3-2 on the season. Babb scattered four hits while striking out 10 and walking one batter.

“This was a huge relief to get this win because we did not want to start off 0-3 in district,” said Babb, who leads the team with 42 strikeouts on the season. “Offensively, we had a tough time with their pitcher, he is pretty good for a sophomore and he came right at us and kept us off balance at the plate.”

Asked if it was a big relief when he saw Townsend’s two-run dinger sail over the fence, Babb replied, “Oh yeah, I had to smile on that one,” said Babb, who is leading the team with a .500 batting average.

Columbus (11-5; 2-1) plated their only run in the top of the second as Chris McCullough led off the inning with a double and later scored on Dylan Patel’s sacrifice fly. Babb then retired the next nine batters in a row before issuing his only free pass to Patel in the fifth inning.

South Panola had plenty of opportunities to get on the board but could not get the key hit. The Tigers put runners on the corners with one out in the second, but Zack Horne  got tagged out in a rundown between third and home for the second out of the inning. In the following inning, Townsend was stranded at second when Babb grounded out to retire the side.

Lee Self led off the bottom of the fourth with a double but was left there as Dale fanned Taylor Meek and Bobby Epps to end the threat. In the fifth, No. 9 hitter John Wesley Willis drew a two-out walk before Townsend’s blast gave South Panola the lead for good.

“I just tried to stay relaxed at the plate and wait for a good pitch to hit and I got it,“ said Townsend of his second homerun of the season. “I knew sooner of later we would bounce back and get that key hit, but we might have underestimated them a little bit. They came out fighting hard and we had to regroup to find a way to win the game,” said Townsend.

South Panola put the game away in the sixth with four runs on two hits. Self led off the frame with a single before pinch-hitter Hunter Durham and Epps reached on a walk and error to load the bases. Dale then walked Blake Darby to force in a run. Tays Hardy followed with a sharp single and error by the left fielder allowed all three runs to cross the plate.

Hardy, Self and Townsend registered two hits each for the Tigers on the night. McCullough accounted for half of the Falcon hits with a single and a double.

South Panola travels to Columbus tonight starting a 6 p.m. then will return home tomorrow to face Olive Branch at noon and Rosa Fort at 5 p.m. for a varsity game only.