Hilldale spoils home opener for Muldrow

The Muldrow Bulldogs baseball team was trying to rebound from behing no-hit by Hilldale pitcher Kyler Richardson on Monday as the ’Dogs were hoping home-field advantage would help them in Tuesday evening’s home opener against the Hornets. Unfortunately, the Bulldogs ran into another Hilldale pitcher who was just as good.

Hilldale pitcher Lance Harris pitched a shutout as the Hornets got an 11-0, five-inning, run-rule victory over the Bulldogs.

Harris (1-0) struck out seven batters and threw a five-inning three-hitter.

The Hornets (2-0 overall, 2-0 in District 4A-8 play) scored five runs in the first inning, a run in the third inning, twice in the fourth inning and three runs in the fifth inning to put the game into run-rule status.

If there was a silver lining in the clouds for the Bulldogs (0-2, 0-2), it was they did something they could not do on Monday — get hits.

The ’Dogs got three hits, a first-inning single by Wyatt Prewett, but he was caught stealing for the third out of the inning.

In the second inning, the Bulldogs got back-to-back, one-out singles by Jace Prewett and Jack Rhodes, but Harris struck out the next two batters to end the threat.

The Bulldogs had one more chance to get on the board in the fifth inning to try to keep the game going. A two-base error by Hilldale left fielder Parker Hughes allowed Rhodes to lead off at second base. After the seventh strikeout by Harris, he walked Briston Weaver and Chris Ware to load the bases with one out.

Gabe Miller hit what looked to be a sacrifice fly to center field, but Richardson threw a one-hopper to catcher Nevin Cannon to tag out Rhodes trying to score from third base for the third out, and end the game by run rule.

Hayden McKinster (0-1) suffered the loss, going 4.1 innings with three strikeouts. Rhodes went the rest of the way.

Another thing that hurt the Bulldogs on the night was they committed five errors that allowed eight of Hilldale’s runs to be unearned.