Panthers beat 'Pack first time since 2005

Jake Wood's favorite memory hadn't yet been recorded when Lakeside High School's senior baseball players were honored before their final home game.

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In the appropriate space on the sheet read when his name was called, Wood had simply written he hoped to beat Greenbrier on Senior Night.

Wish granted.

"I always knew we had the players to do it," said Wood, a Panthers catcher, after the team beat the Wolfpack 5-2. "We just came through. We gave our hearts."

The win was Lakeside's first against Greenbrier since 2005, when it swept both regular season games.

"And all our guys knew that," Panthers coach Jay Matthews said.

Lakeside won because of a solid performance from junior pitcher Harrison Brawley and a defense that made play after play behind him.

Brawley allowed seven hits, walked none and the Panthers turned a key double play in each of the final two innings.

"I'm just really excited," Brawley said. "It's something no one's done in the county the last couple years."

The Panthers tagged Wolfpack starter Pat McGowan for four runs in the third inning. The top two in the Lakeside order singled. Catcher Mike Gram was then hit with a pitch to load the bases.

McGowan hit Panthers cleanup hitter Chaston Weaver with a pitch, and that scored a run.

McGowan and Wolfpack coach Rodney Holder maintained Weaver didn't try to avoid the pitch, but the call stood.

McGowan settled after the third, though, working quickly and not allowing the Panthers another hit.

But Brawley and the Lakeside defense held.

The win left the Panthers in position to contend for the No. 2 spot in Region 3N-AAAA, something they could accomplish by winning one of their remaining games against Evans or Statesboro.

"We hold our own destiny," Matthews said. "That's what we want."

There was a 50 percent chance of rain Friday and storm clouds came and went throughout the game. The wind was toying with fly balls, but the Panthers finished with no errors. And they got out of two sticky situations late.

With one on and an out in the sixth, Brawley got Wolfpack catcher Adam King to ground into a double play.

What happened to start the Wolfpack's seventh was almost amusing, if not a little worrisome for the Panthers.

Matthews told Brawley to go after Greenbrier slugger T.D. Davis with the first pitch, figuring he'd be taking.

Davis hit a laser past the flagpole beyond the center field fence.

"Guess not," Matthews said.

But after allowing a base hit to Justin Thigpen, Brawley got Wolfpack senior Nick Richards to line out to second, and Thigpen was doubled off at first.

When Greenbrier's Ryan Cato popped out in foul territory along the first base line, the celebration ensued.

Brawley's teammates were unsuccessful at attempting to lift him as he left the mound, but they posed for pictures afterwards and hung around the field long after the game was done.

Wood was a spectator the last time the Panthers beat Greenbrier.

"I saw the game," he said. "I always wanted to know how that felt."

Now he does.