RISON - Rison's Jud Terry turned back a late rally by the Gurdon Go Devils Friday afternoon to preserve a 2-0 shutout and propel the Wildcats into the Class 2A South Region Tournament this weekay at Horatio.
The Wildcats, 12-9 overall after a non-conference win on Tuesday, will go in as the no. 4 seed from the 8-2A conference and will play the Dierks Outlaws, the surprising no. 1 seed from the 7-2A conference, at 3 p.m. Thursday, May 4, at Hora-tio.
The Wildcats had to beat Gurdon on Friday to earn the no. 4 seed. Rison and Fordyce finished tied for fourth in the 8-2A with 6-6 records, but the Wildcats advanced on the tie-breaker.
Last Friday's regular season finale turned out to be a pitching duel between Terry and Gurdon's Aiden Hughes. Both pitchers went the distance with Terry giving up just three hits while Hughes allowed just one.
Rison, however, was able to take advantage of six Go Devil errors to score both of itgs runs and pull out the win.
In the bottom of the fourth, Brock Southerland led off with what would be the Wildcats' only hit of the game. He managed to get to second on one error and then moved to third on Blaine Dixon's ground out. After another grounder resulted in Rison's second out, Andrew Couture drew a walk before another error on Matthew Howard's ground ball allowed Southerland to score.
The Wildcats added one more run in the fifth, again off Guron errors.
Ayden Laws reach on an error to start the fifth, moved to second on Lawson Kidds's sacrifice but but a line drive resulted in Rison's second out. Southerland then had a ground ball that was misplayed by the pitcher allow Laws to race home to make it 2-0.
Terry seemed to have the game in hand until the Go Devils put two runners in scoring position with no outs to start the seventh inning.
Until that point, the only hit that Terry had given up was a single with one out in the first. However, Gurdon l...
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