By Brandon Sumrall | Special to the Advertiser

A season opening win came via a 7th inning comeback for the Billingsley varsity baseball team on March 3, as the Bears picked up a 9-8 win over the visiting Southside Selma Panthers.

A leadoff grounder back to starting pitcher Austin Harrell resulted in an early out for the Panthers, but a single, a pair of hit batsman and a couple of Billingsley errors put the Bears in an early 3-0 deficit.

The Bears answered with one run in the bottom half of the inning thanks to a walk by Drayton Dubose and a RBI ground ball from Robert Glass.

With the Panthers going in order through the top of the second inning, the Bears tied things up in the bottom half of the inning, as Jordan Thompson scored on a Panthers error after reaching on a walk and a RBI single by Harrell tied the game at three.

The tie would not last long, as the Panthers added another run in the top of the third inning on an error by the Bears and made it a two-run lead in the top of the fourth.

A leadoff single along with a pair of errors extended the Panthers lead to four through the top of the fifth, and with a leadoff single followed by a RBI single in the top of the sixth, the game moved to the seventh inning with Billingsley trailing 8-3.

Motley started the rally for the Bears with a leadoff double to left and later scored on a Panthers error to cut the Selma lead to four.

Walks to Larry Starks and Richard Smith and a single to Landon Reed loaded the bases for Billingsley with only one out.

A walk to Dubose drove in one run and a walk to Harrell plated another.

A single by Jonathan Shields made it a one-run game, and a single by Glass along with an error by the Panthers, allowed the Bears to plate two more runners and escape with a 9-8 victory.

Motley led the Bears at the plate going 2-for-3 with a single, double, walk and a run scored.

Harrell threw six innings on the mound allowing five earned runs on seven hits, four walks and five strikeouts.