Texas High falls to district unbeaten Hallsville, 10-4

Texas High struggled with its command on the mound.

The Tigers had a hard time keeping runners off the base, as they walked nine, and had two critical errors en route to a 10-4 loss to District 16-5A unbeaten Hallsville on Friday afternoon at Tiger Field.

Texas High, however, did outhit the Wildcats, 10-7, but couldn’t get much else going to gain momentum.

“When you play a good ball team like Hallsville, it’s hard to dig out of that hole,” Texas High coach John McClure said. “With the total of walked batters and hit batters, I’m a little disappointed with our pitching staff. We have a great defense, and if we get up there and throw strikes like we should, we put ourselves with a chance to win the game.

“We ran through three different pitchers, and a great team is not going to let you back in the game.”

Trevor Toppings started on the mound for the Tigers,

and looked to have great command in the first inning. He gave up a double on the second batter of the game, but forced a pop fly and a grounder to exit the inning with no damage done.

On the other side, Hallsville pitcher Cooper Rawls pitched 6 2-3 innings, while striking out four and only walking one.

The second out of the game, Toppings made a heads up play and caught a line drive coming straight back for him. After that, Hallsville would begin its run.

The Wildcats would score in every inning but one afterwards, starting with an RBI-single by Hallsville’s Colton Oney. Justin Gorby scored the run after being walked and reaching second on a wild pitch.

Hallsville scored two more in the third inning with Easton Loyd and Tye Smith reaching base after back-to-back walks—and later advanced on a wild pitch—when Brayden Johnson knocked them in with a single to go up, 3-0 . THS walked two more batters but got out of the inning to stop the bleeding.

Texas High replaced Toppings in the third with Chris Cowan.

“We thought we could keep Hallsville off-balance by starting Toppings,” McClure said. “Earlier in the year against Lindale, he threw a no-hitter through six innings. But he struggled with his command today. He has done a good job with us, but we cannot give up double-digit walks.”

Hallsville scored five more in the fourth frame, including a threerun home run by designated hitter Chase Amick.

Texas High got its first run in the bottom of the inning when Dakota Turner hit an RBI-double to bring home Conner Allred, and later scored with a Cole Christen sacrifice fly to cut into its deficit, 8-2.

After holding the Wildcats to one run in the fifth, the Tigers got singles by Chris Lyles and Jakob Hearne. Lyles would go on to score with a single by Allred, and Cade Dickson scored Texas High’s final run in the sixth. Dickson connected for a single and later came home on a throwing error.

Lyles finished 3-for-4 at the plate with three singles, while teammates Allred and Caden Dickson added two singles each for the Tigers.

Texas High (15-4, 3-2) will travel to Longview on Tuesday to face Pine Tree, which remains without a win in district play, at 7 p.m.