MEMPHIS -- Chattanooga Christian's Chargers were unable to take care of numerous scoring opportunities and quickly fell into the losers bracket in the Class A state baseball tournament Tuesday morning.
The Chargers stranded 11 and lost to Huntingdon, 6-2, in an opening-round game during Spring Fling XI at the University of Memphis.
"We had a little difficulty with runners in scoring position,'' CCS coach John Visser said. "We didn't get the clutch hit and that would have allowed everybody to relax. We just didn't get it done.''
Chattanooga Christian (17-13) dropped into the losers bracket where it will play at 5 p.m. Tuesday at the University of Memphis against the Goodpasture-USJ loser. Huntingdon (24-11) will play the Goodpasture-USJ winner at 7:30 Tuesday at Christian Brothers High School.
Hungingdon senior right-hander Brian Nellett limited the Chargers to five hits. He struck out nine and walked five. Nellett threw 128 pitches.
"It's not the way we wanted to open the tournament, but we'll find out what kind of character we have,'' Visser said. "Maybe turning around and playing again quickly today will help us get back in the saddle.''
Huntingdon took a 4-0 lead in the bottom of the fourth off CCS starter Jonathan Cook on singles by Adam Parish and Andrew Maddix, a double by Nellett and a sacrifice fly by Will White.
CCS pulled within 4-1 in the top of the fifth when Nathan Long led off with a double, went to third on a passed ball and scored on a wild pitch.
Huntingdon pushed its lead to 6-1 in the bottom of the fifth on an RBI triple from Kenneth Porter and an RBI single from Cody Crocker.
Long singled to lead off the seventh and scored on a double by sophomore Clay Hindman, but Nellett worked out of the jam and left two stranded.
Hindman had two doubles for CCS and Long added two singles.
Losing pitcher Cook gave up eight hits in five innings for the Chargers. Ryan Miller pitched the sixth.
LINESCORE
Chattanooga Christian…….000 010 1 -- 2 5 2
Huntingdon………………….004 020 x -- 6 8 3
Jonathan Cook, Ryan Miller (6) and Elias Yandell; Brian Nellett and Will White.
(E-mail Stan Crawley at wscrawley@earthlink.net)