Khaden Washington was a pitch or two from doing to North Little Rock what he did earlier this month.

But the Charging Wildcats’ Christian Litton had a different idea.

Litton’s two-out, bases-clearing triple took the wind out of Northside’s sail and helped lead North Little Rock to a 9-1 win over the Grizzlies on Friday night at Hunt’s Park.

The game, originally scheduled for 5 p.m., was delayed until 6:41 because of an umpire shortage.

Washington was sharp early. But his breaking pitch began to fail him, and the Charging Wildcats made him pay.

“He’s as cool as it gets, I just think it was one of those nights where he couldn’t find his breaking pitch,” Northside coach Brian Fry said. “He came out, and in three innings he had eight strikeouts.

“I just think we got too relaxed and we didn’t do our job.”

Northside, which has already clinched a playoff berth, was playing for seeding Friday. Early on, things were working in their favor, too.

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Jake Rincon slammed winning pitcher Trent Bunting’s sixth offering into deep right center field for a triple. He scored on Kadin Hyatt’s RBI grounder for a 1-0 lead.

Washington made it through two innings with relative ease. In fact, he struck out the side on 10 pitches in the second inning.

But North Little’Rock’s Julian Gonzalez lined a single to open the third inning. One out later, Weston Mcghee lined a ball that eluded Rincon in center for an RBI triple. Grant Shahan followed with a sacrifice fly to make it 2-1.

That was plenty for Bunting. The right-hander mixed his pitches up well and held Northside to just four hits.

The Charging Wildcats, meanwhile, took advantage of Washington’s wildness in the fourth to break the game open.

With one out, Ben Morris was hit by a pitch. One out later, Gonzalez and leadoff hitter Alex Cauley followed with a walk. Mcghee then lined a two-run single to center to make it 4-1.


Washington then hit Shahan, leading to Litton’s key at-bat.

The North Little Rock catcher tripled to deep right center to make it 7-1.

“We had a couple of mental mistakes right there early that we could have prevented from happening,” Fry said. “They just took advantage of some mental breakdowns on our part.”


