By CURTIS ROCKWELL/Sports Director

ST. MARTIN — St. Martin came into Saturday afternoon’s third and final Region 4-7A game against neighboring rival Ocean Springs with the idea of picking up its first win of the year over the Greyhounds before sitting down to Easter lunch on Sunday.
But Greyhound junior Cannon Hensarling had another idea in mind.
Five batters into the game, Hensarling stepped to the plate with the bases loaded and no outs and promptly deposited the ball over right field fence for a grand slam.
The Yellow Jackets never recovered, and Ocean Springs maintained its hold on the top spot in the region race with a 14-3 win to move to a perfect 6-0 in league play.

“I thought we played well all around today,” first-year OSHS head coach Ryne Long said right after the win. “Cannon looked a lot more comfortable on the mound, and helped himself out with a grand slam in the first. We played really clean defense all series and pitched well enough to win.”

The Greyhounds have now swept both St. Martin and Biloxi in region play.
Along with Henesarling’s big blow, Chris Fox added RBI-singles in both the first and second innings and before most fans were settled into their seats the Greyhounds had a commanding 6-0 lead.
Ocean Springs stretched that lead to 8-0 in the top of the fourth, thanks to a run-scoring double by Maddox Moreland and an RBI-single from Michael Diaz.
Simon Kruppa’s RBI-single in the fifth frame made it 9-0, before St.Martin battled back a bit when Caleb Lawrence doubled with the bases loaded in the bottom of the inning to clear the sacks and make it 9-3.
But that would be as close as the Yellow Jackets would get. A.J. Arguello posted a three run-double of his own for OSHS in the top of the sixth and Grant Russell followed with a two-run single and suddenly OSHS had its biggest lead of the game at the final outcome 14-3.

“It’s tough to sweep a three game series at any point,” Long added. “I was proud to see our guys come out ready to play.”

The Greyhounds tallied 16 hits in the big win, and Kruppa had a game-high three of them. Fox, Hensarling, Diaz and Kristin Dillard each added a pair of hits apiece to the winning campaign. Hensarling’s four RBIs were more than the Yellow Jackets’ entire team, and Arguello’s trio of runs batted in equaled St. Martin’s team total.
Hensarling also started on the mound and picked up the pitching win, working four frames.
Lincoln Hust started for St. Martin and took the loss, as the Yellow Jackets fell to 1-5 in the region race.
Lawrence had two hits for SMHS, which was half of the team’s total number of hits.

Ocean Springs faces Harrison Central next week in a three game Region 4-7A series, and St. Martin does the same against Gulfport.

“We’ve got some things we need to clean up, and we will need to play well against a Harrison Central team that’s got some momentum after some big wins the last few weeks.” Long concluded.