Jackson baseball wins on technicality

The Jackson Indians baseball team defeated the Northwest (Cedar Hill) Lions via a forfeit during the fifth inning when the Lions pitcher began pitching to a Jackson batter after reaching his pitch limit.

According to MSHSAA rules, once a pitcher has reached 105 pitches he may not pitch to a new batter. Northwest failed to catch this and after a long discussion by the umpires, the game was suspended giving the Indians the victory.

Before the forfeit, the game was in the bottom of the fifth inning with both teams putting up a ton of offense at a score of 9-8 Lions. Jackson designated hitter Lance Wilson had led the Indians with a 2-3 day to go with three RBIs. Indians head coach Josh Roach said he was very pleased with Wilson, who had just been brought to varsity today.

“We’re really proud of Lance Wilson, he was actually on the JV roster yesterday and we pulled him up today,” Roach said. “He came in and did a phenomenal job, he got two gigantic hits for us so we’re just extremely proud of Lance.”

Along with Wilson, several other Indians had a multi-RBI day with Owen Osbourne and Jaiden Gleny each having two.

Carson McDaniel started on the mound for Jackson, going three innings with four strikeouts and just one earned run. The Lions did score four runs in the third inning but an error is what brought in the runner, keeping McDaniel’s day fairly clean. Roach said McDaniel is always going to compete and the defense normally makes plays to support him.

“He was a little inconsistent today with the strike zone, but defensively we were a little shaky behind him, not making a few plays that we usually always make and when you do that, it causes your pitcher to throw more pitches,” Roach said. “But Carson threw the ball well, just not as well as I know he would want to, he got behind the hitters in counts quite a bit. That third inning ran his pitch count up so we decided to make a change.”

The Indians (6-2) will be back in action at home on Monday when they take on Oakville (3-4) at 4:30 p.m.