Northern Durham baseball edges Person on walk-off single

Northern Durham senior Tyler Mangum smacked a single up the middle to drive home the winning run in a 3-2 win over Person Tuesday in PAC-6 Conference action.

Knights second baseman Harrison Whitt singled to start the seventh-inning rally. Whitt then advanced to third base on a throwing error, setting up Mangum’s heroics.

“I was a little nervous when he got to third there, but I just focused on shortening up my swing and making sure I put the ball in play and score the winning run,” Mangum said.

The Knights trailed 2-1 after Rockets outfielder Drew Clayton’s two-run home run at the top of the fourth inning to give Person (3-3, 0-3) its first lead of the game.

Northern (3-4, 1-2) tied it up in the bottom of the sixth when senior centerfielder Spencer Smith singled, stole second and advanced to third on a Person throwing error. Third baseman Luke Fenlon sent Smith home on a single down the left field line.

“It feels so good. It really does feel that the monkey is off our backs now,” Northern coach Greg Pruitt said. “Hopefully, it can give us that boost of confidence because we really needed it. Going into this game, we were kind of down. We lost a couple of tough games we felt we could have won and didn’t, and this was a battle tonight.”

This story was originally published March 22, 2017 at 1:43 AM with the headline "Northern Durham baseball edges Person on walk-off single."