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By ANDREW SIMONSON | Sports Editor

HOOVER – The Helena Huskies had a wild weekend at the Perfect Game High School Showdown in Hoover as they came close to reaching the White Bracket Championship but still ended the tournament with a 3-1 record.

Helena defeated Mississippi’s Brandon Bulldogs 7-5 on Thursday, Feb. 27 in the White Quarterfinals before dropping a wild 12-10 semifinal game against the Hartselle Tigers on Friday, Feb. 28. The Huskies would go on to defeat Maryland’s John Carroll Patriots 10-1 and the Sparkman Senators 10-7 on Saturday, March 1.

In the first game of the weekend against Brandon, the Bulldogs jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the top of the first with an RBI single followed by an RBI ground out. They would then extend that lead to 3-0 in the top of the second before Helena responded in a big way.

A pair of singles and an error loaded up the bases for the Huskies with one out, and they immediately tied up the game off a passed ball followed by a Brett Cannon RBI single.

Two batters later, Nick Peters took the lead to 4-3 before Davis Kelley hit an RBI double on the next pitch to make it a 5-3 ball game. Helena then got a run off an error in the bottom of the third as Jonathan Roberto came home following his one-out double.

Brandon cut the gap to 6-4 off a sacrifice fly in the top of the fifth, but a bases-loaded walk in the bottom of the fifth briefly restored the Huskies’ three-run lead.

The Bulldogs would score once more off a sacrifice fly in the top of the seventh, but they couldn’t close the gap any more than that as Helena took the 7-5 win.

Peters and Kelley each had multi-hit games as Peters went 2-for-4 with a run and an RBI and Kelley was 2-for-4 with an RBI.

The semifinal game against Hartselle saw the two teams combined for 22 runs. The Tigers opened up a 4-0 lead before the Huskies scored three runs in the top of the third off a Peters single and an error.

Hartselle took the lead to 5-3 before an emphatic grand slam by Kelley in the top of the fourth gave Helena 7-5 advantage. The Huskies followed that up with an RBI triple from Roberto and a Jake Holderfield RBI single to take the lead to 9-5.

The Tigers scored again in the bottom of the fourth, but the Huskies answered in the top of the fifth to restore the four-run lead. However, a six-run offensive explosion by Hartselle in the bottom of the sixth was too much to overcome as the Tigers won 12-10.

Kelley finished a triple short of the cycle with a 3-for-4 performance with a grand slam, double and single, earning five RBI and two runs in the process. Holderfield went 2-for-3 with a walk and an RBI single while Cannon was 2-for-4 with a walk and a run.

The next day against Maryland side John Carroll, Helena’s offense continued to shine even in the consolation bracket. The Huskies got out to a 3-0 lead in the bottom of the second thanks to a bases-clearing triple by Nate Jones after three walks in four at-bats.

Jarret Scott’s lead-off double in the bottom of the third then turned into a run off a wild pitch and Peters RBI single. Two one-out walks set up the offense for success from there, and even after a strikeout, the Huskies scored three runs off a passed ball, Jones single and an error.

The Patriots cut into the 8-0 lead with a run off a wild pitch in the top of the fourth, but that was all the offense that they could muster. Helena plated two more runs off a hit by pitch and a sacrifice fly in the bottom of the fifth to finish off the 10-1 win.

Jones finished 2-for-2 with two walks, five RBI and a run while Scott was 2-for-3 with a run.

The Huskies then took on Sparkman to close out the tournament and went up 2-0 in the top of the first off a bases-loaded walk and a hit by pitch. However, the Senators plated four runs off two hits in the bottom of the second to go up 4-2.

Helena got in a two-out hole in the top of the third, but a hit by pitch followed by two walks gave them life. An error let the Huskies tie the game at 4-4 before a Cannon triple took the lead to 6-4. He was the lone player on his team with multiple hits as he finished 2-for-4 with a walk, two RBI and a run.

Sparkman got a run back in the bottom of the third, but Braydon Kendrick got his own RBI triple after a one-out walk from Kelley to put Helena up 7-5 in the top of the fourth.

The back-and-forth continued in the bottom half of the frame as a one-out walk and single turned into an RBI single for the Senators. The tying run then crossed home plate off an error.

Helena would get the go-ahead run off a balk in the top of the fifth thanks to Roberto’s lead-off double and steal of third. The Huskies shut down Sparkman in the sixth and slammed the door shut with a two-run single from Scott in the top of the seventh, ending the tournament with a 10-7 win.

John Englezos got the win with five strikeouts in three innings despite giving up five runs off five hits and four walks. Hudson Campbell got the save by giving up just one earned run in four innings while working around two total runs, four hits and two walks. He also got two strikeouts.

Helena will host Oak Mountain for its next game on Tuesday, March 4 at 4:30 p.m.