UNION — After Enterprise entered the bottom of the fourth inning with a 7-0 lead, the Bulldogs appeared to be on cruise control against Union in Saturday afternoon prep baseball action.

Then the Yellowjackets scored eight runs in the frame, and suddenly, Enterprise was trailing by one run.

Instead of letting the pressure get to them, the Bulldog bats went right back to work. The teams managed to tie it 11-11 after five innings, but a six-run top of the seventh proved too much for the Yellowjackets to overcome as Enterprise escaped its fellow 2A foe with a 17-13 win.

Enterprise was coming off two wins against divisional opponent Taylorsville this past week in which the Bulldogs captured wins of 9-2 and 14-7. They also got a 16-9 win against Millry Thursday in the Northeast Jones tournament. Considering how spent the team was from those three games, Enterprise head coach John Welch said he was very pleased his team didn’t go through the motions offensively Saturday.

“We continued to hit the ball really well, taking good cuts and hitting our situations well and battling every pitch,” Welch said. “That’s what I’m the proudest of. We were physically and emotionally spent after playing Taylorsville this week, and then we had another game, so we played three games already and got back late last night. They showed up with a good attitude and got after it and hit it and pitched it well, and we just played really well.”

In the top of the seventh, Enterprise needed to create a comfortable cushion offensively, and it did just that. With the scored still tied 11-11, the Bulldogs’ Dalton Baxley got things started with an RBI single that sent home Trey Beech. Baxley later scored on an error, and Zack Brewster followed it up with a two-run double to make it 15-11. A two-run single by Jeremy Pippin made the lead 17-11 before Union recorded the final out. Enterprise got the inning started with several well-executed bunts, which brought a smile to Welch’s face.

“I think we’re very resilient in our lineup,” Welch said. “We do a really good job one through nine of getting prepared to hit, watching pitchers and never giving up and quitting competing, and that’s what we did today. We just competed every at-bat. We made them have to get us out and competed and competed, and we squared some balls up early and late in the game and executed bunts when we needed to. That I’m as proud of as anything, the ability to execute bunts when you need to and get the bunt down, and that helped us to a big inning in the seventh.”

As was the case all day, Union didn’t go away quietly in the bottom of the seventh thanks to a two-run home run by Cameron Sones, but Enterprise reliever Riley Turner was able to close things out after the blast to secure the win.

Turner got the win, going three innings and surrendering five runs, three earned, on five hits with three strikeouts. Beech got the start for Enterprise, and he lasted four innings while giving up eight runs on 10 hits with one strikeout.

Trevor Patchin got the start for Union and lasted two innings, as several Yellowjacket errors cost the team early. Patchin surrendered six runs, two earned, on five hits with three strikeouts and two walks. Sones, Judd Young and Rope Lovern combined for five innings of relief for Union, giving up 11 runs, eight of which were earned.

“The positive thing is our hitting finally woke up,” Union head coach Dustin Hamrick said of his team’s 15-hit, 13-run performance. “We’d been struggling hitting. We had 13 strikeouts against Stringer (Friday night in a 8-7 loss). We finally came back to barreling balls up. That was an ugly game; our defense has to play better. The pitchers did pretty well, but… there were a ton of errors on defense, and we have to be better.”

Sones finished the game 3-for-5 for Enterprise, while J.T. Vance went 2-for-5 with a double. Casey Morris, Patchin and Lovern all went 2-for-4 at the plate, and Jaylon Buckley was 2-for-3.

For Enterprise, Beech was 2-for-5, Baxley went 5-for-5, Dylan Stroud finished 2-for-3 and Seth Williams went 3-for-5. Brewster was 2-for-4, and Pippin finished the game 2-for-5. Baxley, Brewster, Turner, Williams, Stroud and Daniel Swain all doubled, and Beech finished with two doubles.

Enterprise (8-2, 2-0) returns to action Thursday against Newton County in the Stringer spring break tournament.

UNION 10, CLARKDALE 8

The Yellowjackets continued to hit the ball well in Saturday’s nightcap, and this time, Union came away with a win against Clarkdale.

Casey Morris, J.T. Vance, Rope Lovern and Trevor Patchin combined for seven innings on the mound, and they gave up eight runs, seven earned, on 12 hits with six strikeouts and four walks.

Cameron Sones and Jaylon Buckley both finished 2-for-4 for Enterprise, and Kolton Cockerham went 2-for-3. Buckley, Lovern and Lane Hanna all doubled for the Yellowjackets.

For Clarkdale, Bo Richards was 2-for-5, and Ethan Gunter and Jakob Farmer both went 2-for-3. Farmer and Gavin Moffett both doubled for the Bulldogs.

Moffett got the start for Clarkdale, giving up four earned runs on five hits in three innings of work. Gunter pitched 1 2/3 innings, surrendering six runs, one earned, on four hits with four strikeouts and two walks. Noah Vance and Nick Ivey combined to pitch a scoreless 1 1/3 innings.

Union (5-5) will play Sebastopol Tuesday in the spring break tournament at Q.V. Sykes.

Clarkdale (4-4), which earlier Saturday beat Philadelphia 3-0, will also play in the same spring break tournament, beginning Thursday against Leake Central.