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By ANDREW SIMONSON | Sports Editor

HELENA – The Helena Huskies picked up a pair of tough wins on Saturday, Feb. 22, downing their former area foe the Calera Eagles before surviving a test from the Oak Grove Tigers.

Helena defeated Calera 4-2 in the first game of the day to end the Eagles’ perfect start to the season before a 5-4 win over Oak Grove at Helena High School.

In between those two games involving the Huskies, Oak Grove eked out a 4-3 win over Calera.

During the first game of the day between Helena and the Eagles, the two teams dueled it out without scoring a run in the first two innings before Calera broke through.

With two on and one out in the top of the third, Herring and Dalton Ash singled on back-to-back at-bats. The pair brought AJ Johnson and Kegan Johnson home to give the visitors a 2-0 lead.

However, Helena ended the threat with a double play and got right to work in the bottom of the third. Jonathan Roberto’s lead-off double and Nathan Jones’ ensuing single put two on for Cannon. While he grounded into a double play, Roberto reached home while Calera’s attention was on first and second, which cut the deficit to 2-1.

An error during Jarret Scott’s grounder extended the inning long enough for Peters to tie the game off a double to center.

The Huskies got out of a tough bases-loaded jam in the top of the fifth with a strikeout from Brayden Dockery, setting up the offense to capitalize with a tie game.

Two batters after Brett Cannon’s one-out single, Nick Peters came up big once again with his second RBI double of the game, scoring Cannon and making the lead 3-2.

Justin Mullenix came in from the bullpen to replace Dockery and orchestrated a one-two-three top of the sixth. From there, an error put a runner on for Roberto, who came up with two outs and ripped a single to left field for the 4-2 lead.

Calera got a big chance in the top of the seventh with a pair of walks with one out, but a double play ended the threat and sealed Helena’s 4-2 win.

Roberto and Peters both went 2-for-3 as Peters had two RBI and Roberto had a run and an RBI. Dockery took the win with seven strikeouts in five innings against two runs, six hits and two walks. Mullenix earned the save with two hitless innings while giving up just two walks.

As for the Eagles, Kegan Johnson went 2-for-2 with a walk and a run while Herring had a 2-for-4 game with an RBI. Austin Agee took the loss but got four strikeouts in a complete game of six innings.

A few hours later when Helena took on Oak Grove, the Huskies and Tigers defenses dominated the early stretch of the game.

Helena got an early chance to strike when Davis Kelley singled and Kendrick walked to begin the bottom of the second inning and Harris bunted to advance both runners to scoring position. However, a groundout and a strikeout ended the inning and set up Oak Grove to strike in the top of the third.

After a fly out to start the innings, a double and an error put two in scoring position and led to three RBI singles over the next four batters. The Tigers went up 3-0 before the Huskies forced a pop out in foul territory to end the inning.

However, Helena couldn’t respond on offense in either the fourth or fifth innings. That included a bases-loaded opportunity off Kendrick and Roberto singles and a walk from Peters as the Huskies struck out to end the inning.

The Tigers’ first two batters of the top of the sixth got out, but they rallied to put two runners on with a single and a walk. Oak Grove got an RBI single on the next pitch to increase the lead to 4-0, but Helena got a runner out at third during the sequence to get out of the inning.

Needing a big response, the Huskies got one off a Kelley double and Kendrick single to start the bottom of the sixth. Harris then doubled to left to get Helena on the board.

The next batter struck out, but a Jake Holderfield sacrifice fly allowed Kendrick to score and Harris to reach third. However, that left Helena in a precarious two-out situation which was exasperated by Jones going down 0-2 in the count.

Jones took a risk by swinging on the third pitch, but he was rewarded with a single to third to make it a one-run game and keep the inning alive.

From there, Cannon drew a walk to put runners on the corners after Jones advanced to third off an error on a pickoff attempt. Jones then came home for the tying run on a wild on the first pitch of Scott’s at-bat.

Scott then singled ahead of a pitching change for Oak Grove, but an outfield error off a Peters fly ball led Helena take the 5-4 lead.

Scott then came on to close and took the save by working through four batters to get three outs, including two strikeouts.

Trey Lampman took the win, going six innings while working around one earned run, four total runs, seven hits and two walks against two strikeouts.

Kendrick was 2-for-2 with a walk and a run, Kelly finished 2-for-4 with a run and Scott went 2-for-4 in addition to his mound work.

Helena improved to 4-2 with the wins and will travel to Homewood on Tuesday, Feb. 25 to face the Patriots at 4 p.m.

As for Calera, it dropped to 5-2 with the losses. They then took their third-straight loss and second-straight by one run in a 6-5 road defeat at Jemison. The Eagles will have a week off before their next game against the Pelham Panthers on Tuesday, March 4 at 6:30 p.m. at Pelham High School.