By CURTIS ROCKWELL/Sports Director

OCEAN SPRINGS — Ocean Springs maintained its grip on first place in Region 4-7A play Thursday night.

The home-standing Greyhounds overcame an early 2-0 deficit to finish the game with seven unanswered runs en route to a 7-2 win over St. Martin. The win keeps OSHS perfect through five games in the region race, and also drops the Yellow Jackets to 1-4 in league play.

The Greyhounds now stand 10-5 overall and have won six out of their last eight games under first-year head coach Ryne Long.

“I thought we gutted that one out, it wasn’t our cleanest game but we kept grinding out at bats until we broke through.” Long said. “We made some big pitches when we needed to and got big hits with runners in scoring position. We stuck with our approach and ended up breaking through. Those guys aren’t going to do anything to beat themselves and they stay balanced at the plate and make it tough on pitchers if we aren’t ahead in counts.”

The Yellow Jackets opened the scoring taking a quick lead with two runs in the top of the first frame. Lake Fincher and Will Roebuck each delivered RBI-singles to give St. Martin that 2-0 advantage.

Things stayed that way until the bottom of the fourth inning, when the Greyhounds woke up and tied the game up with a two run rally of their own when Michael Diaz grounded a ball to shortstop that turned into a two run error as Maddox Moreland and Cannon Hensarling crossed the plate with two outs to knot the game up.

But that was just a harbinger of things to come for the home team.

Back even on the scoreboard, the Greyhounds took control of the game as well as a lead they would never relinquish with four more runs in the next inning.

Moreland’s two-run double was the key blow in the eruption, while Chris Fox had an RBI-single and Hensarling drove in Moreland with a run-scoring single.

Fox made it 7-2 with another RBI-single in the bottom of the sixth stanza to complete the comeback.

 Moreland posted a game-high three hits and drove in two runs to pace OSHS at the plate in the win, while Fox added two hits and a pair of RBIs and Hensarling had two hits and drove in a run.

Fincher and Roebuck had two hits apiece for St. Martin.

Will Blevins started and went the first four frames on the mound for OSHS, before Griffin Frye took over and went the rest of the way to earn the win.

River Groue started and worked into the fourth for St. Martin before the Greyhounds came alive and Fincher then came on in relief to take the loss.

The two teams are slated to face off gain in the finale of the three game series Friday afternoon back in St. Martin where Ocean Springs took a 7-0 win Tuesday night in the opening game behind a shutout performance on the mound from junior Jack Jordan.