It was a walk-off home run by Manchester’s Luke Applegate that gave the Greyhounds a 1-0, 11-inning win over Whiteoak on May 6. (Photo by Amillion Brown)
Barnhart no-hits Faifield in Friday win
In the Manchester 1-0, 11-inning win over Whiteoak on May 6, Greyhounds’s starting pitcher Leland Horner tossed seven no-hit shutout frames. (Photo by Amillion Brown)
By Mark Carpenter
People’s Defender
First-year head coach Trey Meade has his Manchester Greyhounds baseball squad trending in the right direction and peaking at the right time as the 2025 regular season winds down. With four wins in four days last week, the Greyhounds have surged into first place all alone in the small school division of the Southern Hills Athletic Conference with an 8-2 conference mark and a 10-4 overall record.
In their perfect week, the Greyhounds recorded four consecutive conference wins, knocking off Whiteoak, Peebles, Ripley and Fairfield, with the wins over Whiteoak and Fairfield dropping those two teams behind the Hounds in the small school standings.
With one win already in the spring over Whiteoak, Manchester hosted the Wildcats on May 6 and the two teams turned in what is likely to be the best high school baseball game in the area this season, an 11-inning nail-biter that saw the home team walk it off in exciting fashion for a 1-0 win.
Starting pitcher Leland Horner was outstanding on the mound for the Hounds, throwing seven no-hit shutout innings and striking out 10 Wildcat hitters. He was matched, though, by the work of Whiteoak’s Izayah Clift, who tossed nine shutout frames, allowing just two hits and striking out 11. Manchester Reliever Luke Applegate was also flawless, throwing four shutout innings, allowing four hits and fanning wight and it all came down to the bottom of the 11th with Applegate at the plate with one out and Whiteoak reliever Zander Roades on the hill.
Applegate, hitless in his first four at-bats, found a 3-1 pitch to his liking and blasted a solo walk-off home run to left to send the Greyhound faithful home happy and give his team a crucial conference win and a rare season sweep of the Wildcats.
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