Newton County's Tanner Elders reaches first base safely as the ball gets away from Northeast Lauderdale's Landon Keller.

Northeast Lauderdale High School took a one-run lead into the top of the seventh inning of its district opener against Newton County High School Tuesday night.

With one out, Trojan pitcher Devin Sisson faced Newton County junior Christian Aycox. Aycox singled, but went down after a hard tag into his stomach. He would end up being the tying run as the Cougars netted a three-run inning to defeat Northeast Lauderdale 5-3.

“We are pretty resilient; it’s been an adventurous preseason,” Cougar head coach Wyatt Tullos said following the win. “I don’t know how many injuries we’ve had, but we’re trying to get healthy. I don’t know how many we had tonight. It was a good baseball game with a good atmosphere.”

The Cougars scored first in the top of the first inning when Eli Harrison had an RBI single to drive in senior Jacob Edwards, giving Newton County a 1-0 lead.

Northeast Lauderdale’s (5-2) offense opened up in the bottom of the third inning when freshman Landon Harper singled to first off Cougars (7-2) pitcher Tanner Elders, a senior. Harper stole second before scoring a run off of junior Lane Gordon’s double that tied the score at one. Senior Landon Keller blasted another double to score Gordon, and Sisson provided his own run support with a double to give Northeast Lauderdale a 3-1 lead.

“Newton County is one of the top teams in the state, and that right there shows that we can play with them,” Trojan head coach Josh Snider said Tuesday night. “The beautiful thing is that we get to go back and play again Friday. Our guys know they can play with anybody. We’re going to watch this, and it hurts, but we’re going to let it go and get ready to play again Friday.”

Newton County cut the lead to 3-2 in the sixth inning when John Ross Griffin doubled in Elders.

With a one-run lead heading into the final inning, Sisson appeared in line for the win. After allowing the single to Aycox, Sisson forced a lineout from Edwards, needing two more outs to end the contest. After hitting Cougar senior John Mark Vincent with a pitch, and allowing a single to junior Alec Ivey, Snider decided to turn to senior Daniel Edwards to relieve Sisson.

Harrison then singled in Aycox for Newton County, then the Trojans walked in another run to make it 4-3. The Cougars scored their final run when Garrett Mills came home on a wild pitch.

Sisson (2.10 ERA) pitched 6.2 innings and allowed two earned runs while striking out seven.

“Going into this game,we talked about that if we saw Sisson, he would be a great competitor,” Tullos said. “Over the years, he’s always had a bunch of clutch hits and has been a good competitor for them. We knew that coming in he would be competitive.”

Keller went 3-for-4 at the plate for the Trojans while adding an RBI, and Northeast Lauderdale as a team hit .310.

Griffin went 3-for-4 with an RBI. Elders surrendered three earned runs and struck out six Trojan batters in 5.1 innings.