The Brownwood Lions relinquished their share of the District 6-4A baseball lead as the Stephenville Yellow Jackets completed a three-game league sweep at Morris Southall Field Friday night, 8-4.
The Lions (18-8-1, 7-3), who have defeated every other team in district but Stephenville (13-12-1, 6-2), now trail the Yellow Jackets and first-place Glen Rose (15-7, 7-1) with two games remaining – those falling April 25 at home and April 28 on the road against the front-running Tigers.
Brownwood fell behind 2-0 in the top of the first inning as Kyler Bowman led off with a single to right field, Eli Hitola followed with an RBI triple to right, and Hitola came home on a wild pitch.
The Lions responded with three runs in the bottom of the first as, with two outs, David Turner singled, Cole Miller walked and Owen Huntsinger doubled to left field to knot the score at 2. Jordyn Nickerson then reached on an error, which allowed Huntsinger to score the go-ahead run.
The Yellow Jackets knotted the score at 3 in the top of the second as Weyers led off with a single and eventually scored on a two-out wild pitch.
Stephenville then seized control with a four-run top of the top of the fourth inning. With out out, Luke Heller was hit by a pitch and Bowman followed with a go-ahead RBI triple. Hitola then singled home Bowman, Nate Barry doubled home Hitola and Haiden Rudloff doubled home Berry.
Leading 7-3, the Yellow Jackets scored once more in the fifth inning as Tyler Hicks led off with a single and came home on Bowman’s two-out RBI single.
The Lions mustered just one more run the rest of the contest as Nickerson tripled to start the bottom of the sixth inning and scored on Campbell Gilmore’s RBI ground out.
Luke Gray and Turner combined to yield eight runs on 12 hits with five strikeouts and four walks.
The Brownwood offense tallied six hits against Gabe Elms and Wacey Dill – one each by Turner, Huntsinger, Nickerson, Gavin Brandstetter, Austin Wright and Antonio Ybarra.
