Woodlawn Survives Late Rally By Wildcats, 9-8

WOODLAWN - After being down by five entering the top of the seventh, the Rison Wildcats plated four runs and had the tying run at second when Woodlawn's Tate Hall managed to get a strikeout to finally end the game and turn back the Wildcat rally, 9-8, Tuesday afternoon at Woodlawn.The game was orginally scheduled to be played at Rison, but wet field conditions there forced the move to Woodlawn. The Bears will now travel to Wildcat Field for the second conference game on April 19.Woodlawn seemed to have the game in hand after scoring five runs to break a tie in the bottom of fourth and go up 9-4.The Bears maintained that margin going into the seventh when Rison's Brock Southerland led off with a single, Canon Cope was hit by a pitch and Owen Morrison walked to load the bases with no outs.After an infield fly resulted in the first out, James Jacobs drew a bases-loaded walk to push one run across, and then a ground out by Ethan Saeler scored another, making it 9-6.Lawson Kidd then had a ground ball sneak past first base for a single to score another run, and Matthew Howard followed with yet another hit to bring another run home to make it 9-8.That's when Hall, who had come on in relief of Brayden Jones, finally ended the game by striking out the next batter on three pitches."We just play close baseball games… All of them have been close," Woodlawn Coach Richardson said after the game.The Bears improved to 14-1 overall and 4-0 in 8-2A conference play with the win while Rison fell to 2-7 overall and 1-3 in league action. Of Woodlawn's 14 wins, seven of those have been by two runs or less."Once we got there (to a onerun lead), there wasn't any panic," Richardson said about the disappearing five-run lead. "We got the out and did what we had to to get them." While he said his Bears gave the 'Cats a little help with the walks and hit batters, Richardson still gave Rison credit for capitalizing. "Kudos to them. They did a good job," he said.Rison Coach Chad Cope, in his…