Sep. 19—RIPLEY — Stonewall pitcher Taegus Pogue worked himself in and out of trouble and tossed a complete-game, no-hitter in the Longhorns' 5-0 win over local foe Asher Saturday in the third place game of the Ripley High School Invitational.

Stonewall, ranked No. 19 in Class A, improved to 15-10 on the year while Asher — No. 9 in Class B — fell to 11-10.

The Longhorns open postseason play at a Class A District Tournament in Tushka. Stonewall meets Rock Creek at 1 p.m. Thursday in a first-round contest.

SHS head coach Dillon Monday said he feels like his team is ready for the playoffs. The Longhorns have won seven of their past 10 contests in a variety of ways — from blowouts to contests coming down to the final innings.

"I like where we're at right now. I think the boys are competing well and finding different ways to win," Monday told The Ada News. "We need to be a little better with some situational hitting, but overall the kids have fought through different types of adversity and have bought into being a scrappy team. These close games will definitely help us in playoffs."

Stonewall 5, Asher 0

Pogue tossed the gutsy complete-game outing for Stonewall. He struck out four and pitched around six walks and a hit batter but still needed less than 100 pitchers to finish the contest.

"I thought Taegus threw the ball extremely well. He let a few at-bats get away from him, but most of his walks were competitive at-bats that ran into full counts," Monday said. "Asher is a really solid ball club, so any time you can no-hit a team like that you know you've accomplished something."

The Longhorns collected six total hits in the game, led by speedy leadoff hitter Mika Matt, who went 2-for-3 with a walk, an RBI, two runs scored and two stolen bases. Laden Bailey cracked a double and finished with three RBIs for the Longhorns. Garrett Gambrell also hit a double and drew a walk.

Kaden Romines and Pogue had the other Stonewall hits.