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The Thompson Warriors are heading back to the Class 7A baseball playoffs and are now one win away from an area title after sweeping Hillcrest-Tuscaloosa. (For the Reporter/Jason Homan)

By ANDREW SIMONSON | Sports Editor

The Thompson Warriors are back in the Class 7A baseball playoffs as their dominant run through area play continues.

Thompson swept away one of its new area foes, the Hillcrest Patriots, with an 8-3 win on Tuesday, April 8 at Hillcrest High School in Tuscaloosa before winning both legs of a Thursday, April 10 doubleheader at Thompson High School by scores of 13-2 and 10-2.

The Warriors started off the game in emphatic fashion as they followed up a lead-off walk with a two-run home run by Wyatt Williams to take a 2-0 lead.

That lead held through the bottom of the fifth when Hillcrest cut into the lead. After loading up the bases with two walks and a single, a line out to center allowed the Patriots to halve the deficit to 2-1 after the runner tagged up and scored.

Thompson used a one-out rally in the top of the sixth to put the game away for good. After a pair of hits put Gabe Romero and Cooper Mills in scoring position, Logan Watson plated both runners with an RBI single to make it a 4-1 game.

Two batters later, the Warriors overcame a two-out hole with a string of RBI singles from Austin Barnett, Anderson Harris and Williams took the lead to 8-1.

While the Patriots scored two runs off wild pitches in the bottom of the sixth, they couldn’t get closer than that as Thompson took the 8-3 win.

Ma’Kale Holden got the win with six strikeouts in six innings, working around three runs, six hits and four walks.

Williams finished 2-for-4 with three RBI and a run, Cooper Fuller was 2-for-3 with a walk and a run and Harris and Watson each earned two RBI.

Two days later, Thompson put its foot on the gas at the plate to finish the win in five innings.

After a pair of singles to start the bottom of the first, Williams opened up the scoring with an RBI single, and runs off a hit by pitch, fielder’s choice and an error took the lead to 4-0 after an inning.

Hillcrest got a lead-off double home with a wild pitch with two outs in the top of the second, but the Warriors got out of the inning and went right back to work at the plate.

With two on and one out, Williams doubled to left make the lead 5-1 ahead of a sacrifice fly and a run off an error for the 7-1 advantage.

The Patriots got a run back in the top of the third off an RBI ground out, but that would be the last run that they would score in game two.

Thompson made it a 9-2 lead in the bottom of the fourth with a two-run double from Mills, and it finished off the win with a big fifth inning. With a pair of runners on from a single and a hit by pitch, Harris came up with a two-out RBI single.

That left two runners on and Williams at the plate, and he launched a three-run home run on the first pitch to seal the 13-2 win.

Williams was a perfect 4-for-4 at the plate with five RBI and a run and secured the win on the mound with six strikeouts in five innings against two runs, five hits and no walks.

Harris went 3-for-3 with a walk, an RBI and four runs, and Barnett finished 2-for-4 with two runs.

In the last game of the doubleheader, Hillcrest went up 1-0 in the top of the first off an RBI single on the second at-bat of the game.

However, Williams responded in the bottom half of the inning with a game-tying RBI single before Josh Tuttle took the 2-1 lead with an RBI double.

Thompson kept rolling in the second inning, starting it off with a Cooper Craycraft RBI single before runs off a sacrifice bunt and a ground out made the lead 5-1.

After the next two innings came and went without a run, an error, a hit batter and a wild pitch in the top of the fifth set up the Patriots to cut the deficit to 5-2 off an RBI single.

Mills quickly restored the four-run lead with a lead-off solo shot in the bottom of the inning. Later in the fifth, Brody Sabo took the lead to 7-2 with an RBI double to right.

Thompson capped off the scoring in the sixth with RBI singles from Mills and Sheldon Fausnight and a Cooper Fuller grounder to short.

The game would then end in the middle of the top of the seventh as the Warriors took the 10-2 win and three-game sweep.

Williams, Fausnight, Craycraft and Mills each went 2-for-2. Williams had an RBI and a run, Mills earned two RBI and two runs and Fausnight and Craycraft had a run each.

The Warriors improved to 26-11 with the wins and 6-0 in area play. Just one win in the final area series against Tuscaloosa County will clinch the area title for Thompson.

Game one will be Tuesday, April 15 at 5:30 p.m. at Thompson High School before games two and three on Thursday, April 17 at 4:30 p.m. at Tuscaloosa County High School.

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