ay Watson wasn't about to go down without a fight leading off the bottom of the eighth inning Monday.

The Rogers High junior took a called strike, then fouled off five straight pitches before lining a single into left field. That proved to be the difference when Watson stepped on home plate on a Van Buren error in a 4-3 win to open 6A-West Conference play at Veterans Park.

"Jay just found a way to win that battle," Rogers coach Matt Melson said. "I think that at-bat was kind of indicative of how our whole team battled back tonight."

After Watson got on, the Mounties (3-1, 1-0 6A-West) found a way to move him around the diamond and into scoring position.

Marc Sussman singled with one out to move Watson into scoring position, and Salvador Jacobo put a hard grounder in play that the Pointers could not handle as Watson raced home.

Van Buren (5-2, 0-1) scored three runs in the top of the second inning off Rogers ace McKaden Templeton. A walk and hit batter put two aboard and Seth Humphrey laid down a sacrifice bunt to move the runners into scoring position. Another walk loaded the bases for Mason Patrick, who singled to drive home Hayden Roark. Landry Wilkerson followed with a two-out, two-run single, scoring Simon Wheeler and Bryce Waters.

"That inning was uncharacteristic for McKaden," Melson said. "You don't see him walk two batters in an inning, and then he hit one. But we talk about giving up minimal damage and he only gave up three runs when a lot of pitchers might give up six or seven runs in that spot."

The Mounties got two runs back in the bottom of the third. Tanner Strickland singled with one out and Templeton reached on an error. Both scored on Brandon Husted's two-run single to pull the Mounties within 3-2.

Then in the eighth, Hayden Seldomridge singled with one out and scored on Templeton's clutch two-out double to tie the game at 3-3.

Templeton went 5 innings and struck out 5 before giving way to Jay Watson, who pitched 3 scoreless innings with 6 strikeouts to earn the win.

Trevor Johnson threw 111 pitches and allowed 6 hits with 4 strikeouts over 6.2 innings for Van Buren. Connor Johnson took the loss for the Pointers.

Husted was 2-for-3 with 2 RBIs, and Watson was 2-for-3.

Wilkerson was 1-for-4 with a double and 2 RBIs for Van Buren.

"I hate it that we have to play big games like this early in the season," Melson said of starting conference play less than two weeks into the regular season. "We don't feel like we've started to click yet, but this was a big win so hopefully this will pay off down the road."

The two teams will meet again at 5 p.m. today in Van Buren.
