Northeast falls to Brookhaven

By By Tom Goetz/special to the star
May 1, 2004
BROOKHAVEN Pitcher Brooks Hall was in the groove and his Brookhaven teammates responded with a flawless performance on defense. That equated into a 6-1 Friday night victory over the Northeast Lauderdale Trojans here on Moyer field in the first game of the South State 4A semifinals.
Hall carried a perfect game into the sixth inning before the Trojans connected on back-to-back doubles and scored their only run of the game. The senior right-hander finished with eight strikeouts and no walks, allowing just three hits.
Game two is set for Northeast Lauderdale's Glynn Frazier Field today at 3 p.m. If a third game is required in the best-of-three series, it will be played Monday at Brookhaven, starting at 6 p.m.
NEL head coach Steve Nelson said he was disappointed with his team's performance. "We didn't come out and play well. Brookhaven put the ball in play and we made the errors (four)," Nelson said.
The first three Trojan batters of the game sent line drives to the spacious outfield but they were all caught. Northeast remained hitless until the sixth inning when Zane Cradic lashed a double over the third base bag with one out to end Hall's bid for a perfect game. Andrew Siciliano followed with a double to left-center, scoring Cradic.
The Panthers jumped on Trojan starting pitcher Cory Chance for two runs in the bottom of the first inning. Hall singled with one out and advanced Xavier Qualls to third. He scored on Grant McDonnieal's grounder to deep short, making it 1-0. Scotty Smith reached on an error and courtesy runner Marlon Dixon raced home with the second run.
In the fourth, Smith singled to left. Josh Patrick dribbled a bunt back to the pitcher but the throw to second base was wide and both runners were safe. Cody Dunaway followed with another bunt that was bobbled and it was 3-0.
Chance (10-3) was replaced by Jason Pritchett.
Another error and another run later, Perkins hit a sacrifice fly to center and it was 5-0. In the sixth, Perkins smashed a double to right-center to score Brandt Hinton and make it 6-1.
Northeast Lauderdale is now 22-10 on the season, while Brookhaven is 25-6.