Dawson fires two-hitter in Newnan victory

Newnan's Brandon Dawson was on top of his game again Thursday night as allowed two hits and recorded 13 strikeouts in the Cougars' 3-0 win over the Douglas County Tigers. The teams will meet again tonight in Douglasville.

HIGH SCHOOL BASEBALL

Newnan 3 Douglas County 0

EC 10 Langston Hughes 4, Heritage 13 Loganville Christian 3

 

If Newnan Cougar fans wondered if Brandon Dawson was recovered from an injury that cost him year of baseball, they could look no further than Thursday night as he allowed two hits in a 3-0 complete game over the Douglas County Tigers at Joe Pope Field.
The Region 3-AAAAAA victory was the second for the Cougars (9-3, 2-0) over the Tigers (4-8,0-2) this week in a series that will conclude this evening in Douglasville.
Dawson assisted in Newnan scoring the only run he would need in the game in the bottom of the second inning as he reached on a one out single and Charles reeves followed by lining s hot into the right center field gap for a triple that scored courtesy runner Drew Morris.
Devin Henry created his own version of A-B-C baseball in the bottom of the third reached first easily on a bunt single, stole second and moved to third on a wild pitch before scoring when Will Dreggors grounded out to second base.
The final run of the game came with two outs in the bottom of the fifth inning as Derrick Nelson reached on a single, advanced to third on an infield error then came home with an unearned run when a flyball hit to center field by Sam Buchanan was dropped.
As for Dawson's outing on the mound, the 2011 Coweta County co-player of the year retired 11 batters in a row after Tigers leadoff hitter Calvin Vargas reached on an infield error to open the game.
Logan Tillem would breakup the no-hitter and the consecutive outs streak with two outs in the top of the fourth inning with a double but Dawson recovered retiring Tigers starting pitcher David Ihrig on strikeout.
The strikeout started a streak of seven batters in a row returning to the Tigers bench but Dawson would have his only "difficult" inning of the night in the top of the seventh as Tillem led off with a questionable infield single and Connor Moroney reached on Dawson's only walk of the game.
With the tying run coming to plate, Dawson recovered and dispatched the Tigers quickly as he retired the next three batters on strikeouts with the last two taking called third strikes.
The line on Dawson was not unusual for the senior who allowed only two hits and the walk as he recorded 13 strikeouts and of the 25 batters faced, 13 received a first pitch strike.
Ihrig may have deserved a better fate as he pitched a quality outing for the Tigers as he allowed five hits, three runs (two earned), one walk and had four strikeouts while inducing nine outs in the infield.
In other area games, East Coweta won their 11th game of the season witha 10-4 victory over Langston Hughes Thursday night in Fairburn while Heritage got a measure of revenge on Loganville Christian with a 13-3 home victory.
The Hawks, who lost to the same Lions club by a 5-4 count last week in Loganville improved to 9-1 overall and 1-1 in GISA Region 1-AAA as they head into spring break and an April 9 date at Weber for a region contest.
In the Indians' victory, the game was tied at 2-2 after two innings when the EC took the lead with a single run in the top of the fourth inning and scored two runs each in the fourth through sixth innings and one more in the top of the seventh.
Austin Bellamy recovered from a slow start against Hillgrove to go three innings Thursday for the win with help from Bryce Gemmel and Matthew Meyer who logged two innings apiece.
The two teams will close their Region 3-AAAAAA series tonight at 6:00 in Sharpsburg.