The Franklinton Demons baseball team won their opening playoff series with the Assumption Mustangs last Friday and Saturday. The Demons won game one on Friday 4-1 and won game two on Saturday 12-5 giving them the win in the best two of three series in the opening round of the Division II Non Select baseball playoffs. The Demons will now move on to the regional round and play the Lutcher Bulldogs on the road this week on Thursday, Friday, andSaturday if necessary.
In game one against the Mustangs the Demons used a mix of solid pitching by starting pitcher Bryce Barber and aggressive base running matched with solid defense to get the win. Barber pitched a complete game spreading out five hits, two base on balls and striking out four. The Demons offense had four hits by Jojo Burkhalter, Kaedyn Jenkins, DaRon Sinceno and Parker DeCarlo and combined those with two errors, two hit batters and four base on balls to tally up four runs.
Jojo Burkhalter led off the bottom of the first inning with a surprise bunt, then stole second and third before he scored on DaRon Sinceno's groundout. This score held through the second and third inning although the Demons threatened in the third with a two outs, bases loaded situation that they failed to score on.
The Mustangs tied the game in the fourth as they put two on with no outs and used a sacrifice fly to score on run on before the second runner was picked off. The Demons answered in the bottom with two runs to push the score to 3-1. They then added another in the fifth for a 4-1 score. Solid defense in the sixth and seventh preserved the win over the Mustangs in game one of the series.
In game two on Saturday the Demons jumped out ahead of the Mustangs 3-0 in the first and added another run in the third for a 4-0 lead before Assumption scored three runs, one each in the third, fourth and fifth inning for a 4-3 score. The Demons then broke the game open with a six run sixth inning and added two more in the seventh for a 12-5 final.
Sinceno, Jenkins, Barber, Breaux, McNeese, Thomassen and Crawford each had hits. Rick Songy pitched four innings giving up one hit, three base on balls and striking out one. Bentley Crawford pitched two innings allowing four hits, one walk and striking out one.
•Results of Franklinton’s Regional games vs Lutcher will be on era-leader.com and will also be in next week’s printed edition of The Era-Leader.
