Marist advances in baseball playoffs

The Parkview Panthers have a rich baseball history and the 2013 team is trying to add its name to the long line of champions. Parkview received some clutch pitching and hitting last night to sweep past Colquitt County in the AAAAAA quarterfinals. A trio of Panthers each hit two home runs as Parkview won Game 1 16-11 before taking Game 2 7-3. Ryan Blanton, Jarrett Hood and Hunter Thornton all cranked a pair of home runs while Sam McCoy won Game 1 and Christian Vann earned the victory in the second game. … Milton will face the Panthers after sweeping past East Coweta 7-4 and 11-1. … Walton just missed pulling off a sweep of Tift County after taking Game 1 8-0. Bradley Schwartz pitched a complete game and helped his own cause with a solo home run. In the second game, Tift County forced the rubber match thanks to a solo home run from Zach Bullard followed by a Jonah Reyes sac fly to push across the winning run in a 2-1 victory for the Blue Devils. … The winner of that Game 3 will meet the winner of the Roswell-Lowndes Game 3, which will be held this afternoon in Valdosta. Roswell earned a clean 5-3 win in the first game before Lowndes stormed back for the 9-4 decision in Game 2. … Pope jumped out to a 9-0 lead in Game 1 of its series against Evans before cruising to a 10-2 win. Evans bounced back with an 11-6 win in Game 2 to force today’s Game 3 at 4:30 p.m. at Pope. … Whitewater continued its road dominance, taking a pair of games from Gainesville to move into the Class AAAAA semifinals. Whitewater won 2-1 and then 4-3 to pull out the sweep to end Gainesville’s season. … Greenbrier also avoided a Game 3 with a 7-1, 4-1 sweep of East Paulding on the road. … Clint Frazier’s outstanding prep career came to a close as Starr’s Mill swept defending Class AAAA champion Loganville out of the postseason. Frazier could be taken in the top five of the MLB draft. … Class AAAA saw four sweeps last night as Troup County, Redan, Marist and Crisp County all advanced to next week’s semifinals. … Blessed Trinity swept past Chapel Hill and will await the winner of the North Hall-Pierce County series. North Hall has never made the semifinals in the history of the program. … Finally, Pepperell and Westminster both advanced to the Class AA semifinals while a pair of Game 3′s will decide the other two semifinalists.