COVINGTON -- Travis Tarleton enjoyed his finest day as a collegiate baseball player Thursday.
The former Heritage and Conyers Post 77 star reached base three times and made a dazzling play at third base to save a potential run in Georgia Perimeter College's 7-5 win over Southern Union State Community College in game two of a doubleheader. The Jaguars won 4-1 in the opener.
Tarleton had what looked to be a leadoff single in the bottom of the second against Southern Union starter Christian Bragg, but the freshman's hustle turned the single into a double. Three batters later, he scored on a single by Antonio Allen to give GPC (17-7) a 1-0 lead.
Tarleton was also part of a four-run third inning, which included a long, two-run home run by Sloan Strickland.
In the inning, in which nine Jaguars came to the plate, Tarleton was hit by a pitch with two outs and scored the last of the four runs on Christian Van Camp's double to, putting GPC up 5-0. Tarleton robbed Tanner Bryant of a hit in the third inning, and added a single in the fifth inning.
"Coach tells us 'hard out of the box.' I was looking (for) two," Tarleton said of his first at-bat. "(It) feels good to start helping the team out a little bit."
Carter Harrison was the beneficiary of the offense generated by Tarleton and his teammates. The right-hander allowed consecutive doubles to Chad Grant and Trey Gregg in the top of the fourth that got Southern Union, a school based out of Opelika, Ala., on the scoreboard, but that's all Harrison gave up in five innings of four-hit, no-walk ball.
With GPC up 7-2, Justin Guy relieved Harrison to start the sixth and ran into trouble. The right-hander walked Bruce Jackson on four pitches, and Grant reached on a fielding error by second baseman Allen to put runners at first and third with no outs.
Gregg followed with his second RBI double of the game to make it 7-3 and Jaguars' coach Danny Blue called upon Brandon Thomas to extinguish the fire.
Though the former Heritage hurler allowed an inherited runner to score on Griff Gordon's double, he left pinch-runner Sandy Tiburcio stranded at third by getting a strikeout and two fly outs to escape further trouble. Thomas allowed a single and a double in the seventh inning, the last of which came around to score on a ground out, but Josh Gobble closed the game by coaxing a harmless fly out.
Trey Preston, Southern Union'' starter, struggled with his control (six walks, one hit batter in 42/3 innings) and it cost the right-hander in a game one loss.
GPC got a leadoff walk in the first from Allen, who stole second, went to third on a balk and scored on Kendall Lacey's one-out single. Jacob Johnson started the fifth with a walk and two batters later, Kenny Strauss laced first pitch he saw to left field, which plated pinch-runner Trevor Walch to put the Jaguars up 2-0.
Lacey followed with an RBI-double and T.D. Davis later made it 4-0 with a run-scoring single that chased Preston from the game.
"We got some clutch hits, back-to-back-to-back," Blue said. "(The) big hit was Strauss, (which) got us going. (Preston) was wild. Originally, he had signed with Auburn, (which) tells you the kind of stuff he has. He just can't throw strikes."
Meanwhile, GPC southpaw Cameron Hall was excellent, scattering five hits in six innings to pick up the win. Hall had a scare in the third when he was hit on his non-pitching hand by Nicholas Marigny's line drive; he was shaken up by the hard shot, but stayed in the game to get an inning-ending out, then allowed just three hits in his final there innings of work.
"It's alright; got the meat (part of the hand)," said Blue. "I thought (Hall) did real well. He's kind of a mid-week guy. (In his) last two outings, he's pitched two good ball games. Right now he's looking like he's stepping up."
Georgia Perimeter returns to its Covington campus Saturday when it hosts Abraham Baldwin Agriculture College in a doubleheader starting at 1 p.m.
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