(Hallettsville) — The Navarro Panthers are in Hallettsville tonight for the Area round of the UIL Class 4A playoffs.
The Panthers will start a three-game series with the Needville Blue Jays. Needville took out Iowa Colony in the Bi-District round last week while the Panthers knocked out Fredericksburg, winning 4-3 in a thrilling game three of their first round series this past Saturday.
Navarro was clinging to their one-run lead in the 5th inning in game three when the Billies had a runner at third with one out. Fredericksburg’s Reed Spies lifted a fly ball to left field. Navarro’s Gavin Newborg would make the catch and then fire the ball to the infield. First baseman Landun Taylor cut the ball off and then threw a strike to catcher Colt Brown who tagged out the runner attempting to score from third to end the inning and preserve Navarro’s 4-3 lead.
Panther head coach Justin Dunnam said his players executed the play flawlessly under pressure.
“Perfect execution all the way around. Gavin made a good catch and came up firing to get it into Landon. And then Landun turned around and fired it into Colt. That was a huge play for us,” Dunnam said. “It kept us at a one-run lead and the kids got excited. The coaches got excited. The fans got excited.
“It was just one of those plays where you rep it (in practice) and you never really know how it’s gonna go until you actually have to execute it under pressure. And that was a pressure situation. Two seniors and a junior executed it to perfection and it was a big momentum shift for us.”
The Panthers move on to face the Blue Jays in a best-of-three series. Game one is tonight in Hallettsville.
Game two is scheduled for Friday evening at 7 p.m. in La Grange. And a game three, if necessary, will take place Saturday afternoon at 2 p.m. back in Hallettsville. We will have all the games on KWED.
First pitch today between Navarro and Needville is at 6 O’clock. Our Panther baseball pregame coverage starts at 5:45 p.m. this afternoon, where we’ll talk more with coach Dunnam on AM 1580 and streaming at SeguinToday.com.