By Jason Avery
News-Times Staff
NORPHLET - Cole Boyd seems to enjoy playing at Union County venues.
Last month, the former Horatio standout helped guide the Lions to the 3A state title, delivering dominant pitching performances in wins over Genoa Central and Harding Academy in the regional finals and state semifinals that were held at Smackover and Norphlet respectively.
In his return to Lambert Field on Tuesday night, Boyd let his bat do the talking, as he belted a three-run homer to lead Texarkana past El Dorado 10-0 in an American Legion AAA Senior Zone 4 contest.
Leading 6-0 after four innings, the Razorbacks scored four runs off of reliever Logan Selman to seal the victory via mercy rule.
With one out, current Smackover standout Beau Burson singled and stole second.
A single by Logan Vidrine put runners at the corners, and Riley Orr drove in a run with a ground out.
After Matt Goodheart was hit by a pitch, Boyd crushed a Selman offering over the fence in left for a three-run blast that capped the scoring in the contest.
Zac Harrington, a former standout at Magnolia who recently finished his freshman season at Southern Arkansas, kept the Oilers’ bats in check, permitting just a third-inning walk to Selman and an infield single to Myles Jones in the fourth en route to a one-hit shutout.
He struck out two.
Difficult innings have plagued the Oilers, and Tuesday was no exception with Texarkana taking advantage of three errors, three walks and a hit batsman to score four runs in the opening inning against El Dorado starter Reagan Cates. Goodheart led off with a walk and Boyd followed with a line drive to left that just eluded a diving attempt by Jones for a single.
Cates then retired Blake Hall on a fly out to right, but with Parker Ribble batting, a wild pitch allowed the runners to advance a base each, and a throwing error to nab Goodheart at third allowed the Texarkana left fielder to score the game’s first run.
Ribble later walked to put runners at first and second, but Boyd was cut down at third on the front end of a double steal.
Cates had an opportunity to avoid further damage, but former Junction City standout Will Smith delivered an RBI single to center to make it 2-0.
Then disaster struck.
Back-to-back errors on grounders to shortstop off the bats of Austin Stubber and Burson allowed Smith to score to push the lead to 3-0.
Vidrine was hit by a pitch to load the bases, and Orr worked Cates for a four-pitch walk to force in Texarkana’s final run of the inning.
A sacrifice fly by Hall and an RBI groundout by Ribble accounted for Texarkana’s scoring in a two-run fourth before Boyd’s aforementioned blast in the fifth ended the scoring.
Boyd went 2-for-3 with three RBIs, while Smith was 1-for-3 with an RBI and Burson finished 1-for-2 with one run scored for the Razorbacks.
Cates suffered the loss after allowing six runs and three hits in three-plus innings.