Roger Lee/Journal Scene

Senior LaQuan Gilliard manned center field and provided some key hits during Pinewood’s championship run last week.

Pinewood and Northwood split their games this season, but the Panthers won the one that meant the most.

Pinewood claimed its first SCISA baseball championship Thursday with a 5-3 victory over Northwood. The Panthers played heads-up defense and got key hits from a couple of former Green Wave athletes to earn a victory that until recently seemed unobtainable.

“Northwood has been tough all season,” Panther coach Evan Powell said. “They are just an all-around solid club. We needed a little bit of luck and we had to make great plays, which we did.”

The Northwood Academy baseball team had owned Pinewood Prep until this season. In a five-year span leading into the 2009 season, the Panthers only managed a single win over the Chargers.

However, this season the Panthers took three games from the Chargers, including two in the SCISA AAA championship series. Pinewood seniors Austin Heflin and LaQuan Gilliard, who are among several athletes to transfer from Summerville High School to Pinewood in the last couple of years, led the way for the Panthers in both victories.

Combined, the duo had a hand in all but one of the runs Pinewood scored in the series. Both finished Thursday with two RBIs and a run scored. One of Gilliard’s RBIs came on a solo homerun and one of Heflin’s came on a double. Heflin also closed the game in relief of Alex Doucet, allowing only two hits and one run in 3 and 1/3 innings.

“I was nervous at the start of this game, but once I stepped into the batters box, I calmed down and did what I needed to do,” Heflin said. “I’ve been seeing the ball well lately. This is a dream come true. We’ve worked so hard for this but we just couldn’t ever seem to get past Northwood. But we came together to do it today.”

Heflin’s double drove in catcher Jairus Schumann in the top of the first inning. Then Gilliard came to bat and plated Heflin with a single for a 2-0 Panther lead.

Northwood opened the bottom of the frame with a double by Seth Graham and a triple by Brandon Stoots that drove in Graham.

Gilliard led off the top of the fourth. As he stepped to the plate, the Northwood fans taunted him with cheers of “Pinewood Green Wave” but the taunting didn’t faze the senior, who drove a pitch over the left-center fence for a 3-1 Panther lead.

“When I first got here, things like that got in my head a little, but I learned to tune it out,” Gilliard said. “I knew they were going to throw me inside because they threw me inside the whole season and I’ve had trouble getting around on one. I’ve struggled against Northwood but I felt like I had to step it up so I came in with an aggressive approach.”

The Chargers cut into the lead in the bottom of the frame when pinch runner Calan Davis scored on a ground out by Ty Powell. That brought up Northwood’s leadoff hitter and marked the end of Doucet’s night on the mound.

“I just didn’t want Alex to face them three times,” Powel said. “That was the plan all along, to bring someone else in at that point.”

The Panthers got out of the inning and only allowed one more run the rest of the way. In the fifth, Brandon Stoots scored on a sacrifice fly by Chris Coon.

Pinewood’s final runs came in the top of the fifth. Chris Askins led off with a double and moved to third on a bunt by Chris Morgan. The base runners were driven in by a pair of sacrifice fly balls off the bats of Schumann and Heflin.

Quality play in the field also factored into the Panthers’ championship. Both Doucet and Heflin had to work their way out of innings where the Chargers had runners in scoring position.

Early in the game, first baseman Taylor Wall made two outstanding plays. He fielded a grounder and then riffled a throw home to catch a runner at the plate in the first inning and made a very athletic catch at first to help the Panthers out of the third inning safely.

Kenan Keller also had a pair of key defensive plays. The second baseman made a diving stop and throw to first to end the Charger threat in the fourth and caught a base runner off guard to end the fifth inning. Northwood’s Thomas Levander beat a throw in from the outfield for a double, but didn’t stay on the bag. Keller alertly tagged him for the out.

Northwood’s Nick Burn led all batters, going 3-for-3. Gilliard finished 2-for-3, but also reached on a walk.

Pinewood improved to 22-8 with the win while Northwood dropped to 24-9.

Contact Roger Lee @ 873-9424 ext. 213 or rlee@journalscene.com.

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