Sports

One down

• Justin Lott throws a no-no, Culin Brown comes up with a game-winning hit and DWS takes the next step toward a state title with a 1-0 win against George Walton on Thursday in the second round of the state playoffs.

Derek Barichello

ALBANY — Deerfield-Windsor starter Justin Lott was the only one in the dark after recording the final out.

But one hug — and the announcement from coach Rod Murray that Lott had just thrown a no-hitter to lead the Knights to a 1-0 second-round Class AAA playoff win against George Walton — changed all that.

Murray broke the news to his senior leader with a big bear hug in the postgame handshakes as the coach could no longer hold back the secret he and nearly the rest of the team held during the entire seventh inning in an effort not to rattle DWS’ ace or break superstition.

“I didn’t have a clue,” Lott said as he finished three walks and two hit batsmen away from a perfect game, all coming in the first two innings.

“There were guys on base early in the game, so I thought for sure I gave up one or two hits. Then coach Murray told me and I was like, ‘This is awesome.’ ”

Still, as fast as word spread to fans in the grandstand behind home plate of the potential no-no, Lott focused his attention solely on holding the Knights’

1-0 lead, which was given to them on what turned out to be the game-winning hit from senior Culin Brown in the bottom of the sixth inning.

Then in the top of the seventh with a chance to close out the game, Lott got the first hitter to fly out, the next batter to ground out — and to cap a total of just seven pitches — Lott made the final out with a shoe string catch on a looping fly, sans any enthusiam.

Lott later revealed this was his first completeno-hitter since his Little League days.

“I had all three pitches working,” Lott said as he struck out only four, inducing eight groundouts and eight flyouts. “My changeup, I felt, was my big pitch (Thursday). I didn’t get as many strikeouts, but that helped because I didn’t have to exhaust myself throwing many pitches.”

Of course, none of Lott’s heroics would’ve been possible without Brown After the senior catcher stepped up to the plate for the second time with a runner at third and less than two outs in the sixth, fouling out the first time in the fourth, he then came through with a line-drive single to left field for his first hit of the playoffs and the Knights’ only run.

“I was sitting (on a) fastball and I was trying to go the other way with it,” said Brown, who did not record an official at-bat in the first round, walking and getting hit by pitch three times in six appearances. “They kept going at me high and away. Then he threw me a changeup down the middle and I was a little in front, but it got down.”

Brown said he changed his approach at the plate after fouling out in his previous at-bat.

“I was a little too selfish my first time up,” said Brown, who signed to play baseball at Southern Union this year. “I was trying to hit a deep fly ball to score ’em. All I needed was a groundball to second. I just got a little too eager.”

Setting up Brown’s game-winning hit, was No. 9-hitter Mike Matthews, who led off the sixth with a two-strike single. Grant Massey sacrificed Matthews to second, then Evan Boyd made it more interesting with a base hit to left.

“We feel like we have 10 to 11 guys who can hit,” said Murray, who is in his first year as coach of the team, which plays Game 2 of the best-of-three series today at 2 p.m.. “Everyone in our lineup has a chance to battle you at the plate.”

And after Brown came through in the sixth, he helped Lott’s pursuit for the no-hitter. But knowing the DWS ace had been on pace to throw one since the fourth inning, he called pitches behind the plate in the seventh to keep the ball away from Bulldogs hitters.

“I didn’t care if we walked guys at that point,” Brown said. “I wasn’t going to let him give it up.”

Brown, who caught Lott all season, admitted that Thursday’s performance was the best he’d seen him throw all year.

“He had the same fastball, but his changeup and backdoor curve were working really well,” Brown said. “I don’t think he missed a single backdoor curve all game. That’s what got him the no-hitter.”

After Lott, who signed with Middle Georgia earlier this year in the same ceremony as Brown, recorded the first two outs in the seventh, Brown even thought about having a mound conference to tell the ace the news of his no-hitter.

“I asked coach Murray about it, and he was like ‘No, no, don’t tell him,’ ” Brown said.

And who knows what would have happened if Lott caught wind of it?

“I don’t know how I would’ve even felt had I known,” Lott said.

In the end, it didn’t matter as the Knights (21-1) now sit perched one win away from the GISA Class AAA Final Four.

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