The Selma Times-Journal

Trailing Maplesville by a lone run going into the bottom half of the seventh inning brought an eerie sense of Dj vu to the Dallas County dugout.

But, unlike last year, the Hornets found redemption, with a late inning rally leading to a 5-4 victory.

With the win, the Hornets improve to 5-0 on the season.

Randal Hamilton led off the bottom half of the seventh with a single, but was forced to watch as Jonathon Hurt went down looking and then Michael Bruno went down swinging.

The Hornets, however, found a second life when Tyler Hollis ripped a seeing-eye single to shallow centerfield.

The Red Devil centerfielder mishandled the ball, allowing Hamilton to score and Hollis to advance to second.

The Devils attempted to stymie the budding Hornet rally by issuing Shane Moreland a free pass to first.

That decision came back to bite them, though.

Andrew Harrison poked an opposite field line-drive over first and past the rightfielder allowing the winning run to score from second.

Harrison and Hurt also join the list of freshman making their varsity debuts this season, according to Jackson.

Overall, the Hornets managed two more hits than their opponents from just up the road.

The box score showed the Hornets and Devils matched with four hits each until the DCHS bottom-of-the-seventh rally that produced a pair of hits and a pair of RBI’s.

After retiring the first three MHS batters, the Hornets scored first and early with a two-run homer that just kept drifting over the right field fence, by Harrison.

MHS answered in the top of the second frame with a pair of runs manufactured the old-fashioned way, with small-ball.

Back-to-back singles from Johnathan Seales and Nick Andrews pushed a pair of Red Devil-runners across the plate to tie the game at 2-all.

The very next inning, MHS claimed the lead when Hunter Brown capitalized on a DCHS error, scoring from second.

And then added a fourth run in the top of the fourth with a double from Josh Smith that scored Nick Andrews from first, 4-2.

In the bottom half of the fifth, the Hornet-bats began to find their sting, Hollis and Moreland walked after a pair of back-to-back outs.

Harrison singled scoring Hollis from second. But, in the baserunning confusion, Harrison turned the single into a double, but Moreland, however was hung out to dry between second and third, eventually being put out by the shortstop to end the inning.

DCHS added a pair of hits in the bottom half of the seventh to claim the victory.

The victory, however was bittersweet for the Hornets.

DCHS was forced to use their third and fourth pitchers, Harrison and Jacob Paxton, due to injuries at the top of the depth chart. Cody Massey was relegated to first base duties after a rotator cuff injury. One pitch into the bottom of the second inning Matthew Ross fouled a ball off of his foot and was taken out of the game.

The Hornets will get their first taste of area baseball action this weekend when they travel to Clanton for a rematch with Bibb County.

Maplesville will also be in action when they play host to Billingsley on Friday.