By Brian Gosset
Burleson Centennial got out to a 5-0 lead and then held off a late seventh inning rally from Midlothian Heritage to beat the Jaguars 5-3 in the season opener on Tuesday night.
The Spartans and Jags are among the Top 25 in our preseason 5A rankings.
Centennial (1-0) scored one in the first and two in the third and fourth innings. Brooke Mayner gave up a single in the first inning, but struck out the side for the Spartans.
Mayner gave herself the 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first inning with a hard grounder back to the pitcher and Kalie Randall scored from third. Heritage’s Trinity Chittamai allowed a double to Lexie Arthur (Texas Woman’s) to put runners in scoring position before getting out of the jam with a strikeout.
Mayner continued to lead the offense with a two-run home run in the third that gave the Spartans a 3-0 edge. Heritage got the bases loaded in the fourth before Mayner ended the frame with one of her 11 strikeouts.
Centennial added to its lead in the fourth on an RBI double from Laineey Simpson-Douglas and RBI single by Ava Ellis (Lamar).
The Jags (0-1) trimmed the deficit to 5-1 in the fifth on an RBI single by Skeylah Shirley. The first two batters reached for Heritage in the top of the seventh and Peyton Koon got a two-run triple to left field. With the tying run at the plate, relief pitcher Kendall Cottongame got a batter to fly out to center that sealed the win.
Centennial, 4x defending district champs, will play in the NFCA HS Leadoff Thursday through Saturday.
