Even though they outhit the Liberty Hill Panthers, Salado Eagles lost to the Panthers 2-1 in a district game March 28.

Salado drew first blood in the first inning. With two outs and the bases empty, Cody Wolf doubled and scored on a deep shot triple to center by Jacob Little, who was left stranded in scoring position.

Liberty Hill answered with two runs in the bottom of the first. Tyler Nelson led off the bottom with a double. Garret Wright walked and both runners advanced on a passed ball. Mason McLenna fouled out to deep right, scoring Nelson and advancing Wright to third after both runners tagged up. Caleb Foster hit a sacrifice fly to deep left to score Wright.

The Eagles tied the game in the top of the third. Keaton Mims led off the inning with a walk and went to second on a sacrifice bunt by Preston Payne. He went to third on a ground-out to second by Wolf and scored on a two-out single by Little. Little stole second and Basham was hit by a pit. A walk of Garrett Lightfoot loaded the bases, McKenna, Liberty Hill’s pitcher, was able to cause Barrett Snyder to hit a grounder to  shortstop Connor Thompson for the third out.

The Panthers scored a run in the bottom of the third, when Nelson hit his second double of the game. He went to third on a passed ball and scored after tagging up on a fly-ball to left by Wright.

Basham came in relief of Peyton Kyburz who allowed three hits and three runs through the first three inning. Basham struck out four batters over the next three innings, allowed no hits, no runs and no batters to reach base. He did so with help from second baseman Jacob Little, Mims in center-field, Wolf at shortstop and Zach Marsh at first.

While the Panthers never got a runner on base the final three innings, Salado left runners in scoring position in the fifth, sixth and seventh innings

In the sixth, Snyder was hit by a pitch with one out. Courtesy runner Phillip  Ellis advanced on a passed  ball, went to third on a single by Jacob Wilk but was called for the third out due to offensive interference trying to reach home.

With one out in the seventh, Wolf singled and courtesy runner Ellis went to second on a ground-out. A grounder by Basham to the second baseman ended the game.

Little and Wolf both had two hits on the night.