OKMULGEE - The Henryetta Golden Knight varsity baseball team finished sixth at the annual Okmulgee Sonic Classic baseball tournament. Defensive miscues in the seventh inning of last Saturday's consolation title game showdown against the Catoosa Indians saw the Knights' 4-run lead become a 9-8 setback for the Henryetta diamond squad. The Knights (17-10) found themselves in the loser's bracket of the 3-day event after suffering a 5-1 defeat to the Glenpool Warriors last Thursday in an opening-round contest. The Henryetta diamond squad avoided elimination last Friday, rallying to defeat the Kiefer Trojans 17-11 in one of the two consolation semifinal games. The Knights will now begin postseason play this Thursday at home against the Holdenville Wolverines in the Class 3A district tournament. The Best-of-3 series will get started Thursday at 4:30 p.m., followed by Game 2 Thursday at 6:30 p.m. An 'if necessary' game will take place Friday afternoon at 4:30 p.m. In last Thursday's opening-round battle with Glenpool, the Warriors tallied two in the first, two in the third, and one in the fourth for a 5-0 advantage. The Knights broke up the shutout bid with a run in the bottom of the sixth and were unable to get any closer, failing to tally any runs in their final at-bat to come up on the short end of a 5-1 outcome. Drew Brown worked the first six innings on the mound to absorb the pitching loss for Henryetta. Brown gave up five runs on seven hits with four strikeouts, four walks, and one hit batter. Jean Pixler entered in the seventh, recording three outs in the scoreless inning of relief. The top hitter for the Knights against Glenpool was Brodie Graffman, who went 2 for 3 with a single and triple. The final two hits for Henryetta came on singles by Jared Montgomery and Andrew Morris. Other HHS baserunners against Glenpool were Montgomery (walk), Morris (walk), Pixler (walk), Brown (fielder's choice, error), and Ethan Wincle (walk, fielder's choice). In last Friday's consolation semifinals against Kiefer, the Knights got the scoring started with five runs in the top of the first. Kiefer responded with three runs in the home half of the first, while Henryetta plated two runs in the top of the second for a 7-3 advantage. Kiefer made it a 7-5 contest with two runs in the bottom of the third. The Knights increased its lead to 8-5 with a run in the top of the fourth, while a 3-run bottom of the fourth deadlocked the score at 8-8 after four innings of action. Kiefer went in front 10-8 with a pair of runs in the bottom of the fifth. The Henryetta diamond squad regained the lead at 17-10 with a 9-run top of the sixth. Kiefer was only able to manage one run in the bottom of the sixth to make it a 17-11 contest. Neither team was able to produce any runs in their half of the seventh to put the Knights on the winning end of a 17-11 outcome. Jean Pixler earned the pitching win for Henryetta. Pixler worked two and two-third innings of relief, giving up one run on three hits with one walk. Jared Montgomery worked the first four and one-third innings for the Knights, allowing 10 runs on nine hits with three strikeouts, three walks, and three hit batters. The top hitters for the Knights against Kiefer were Drew Brown (3 for 5, 3 singles, RBI) and Ethan Wincle (3 for 4, single, double, triple, 4 RBIs) with three hits each. Other Henryetta players with multi-hit games in the loser's bracket contest were Montgomery (2 for 5, 2 singles, RBI), Pixler (2 for 5, single, double, 3 RBIs), and Ethan Palmer (2 for 4, 2 singles, RBI) with two hits apiece. The final two base hits for the Knights against Kiefer came on a single by Jeremiah Boyles and an RBI triple by Brodie Graffman. Other baserunners for HHS in the consolation semifinals were Brown (walk), Palmer (2 walks), Montgomery (walk, error), Wincle (walk), Graffman (RBI walk, error), Boyles (hit by pitch), Jerad Fife (RBI walk), and Andrew Morris (RBI hit by pitch, error). In last Saturday's consolation finals, Catoosa opened the scoring with a pair of runs in the top of the first. The Knights tallied three runs in the bottom of the third for a 3-2 advantage, then Catoosa knotted the score at 3-3 with a run in the fourth, while Henryetta pushed across two runs in the last of the fourth to go back in front, 5-3. Both teams plated a run in their half of the fifth to make it a 6-4 contest after five innings of action. A pair of runs in the home half of the sixth extended the Knights' lead to 8-4. A pair of defensive miscues allowed Catoosa to push across five runs in the top of the seventh to go in front by one, 9-8, heading into the final half-inning of regulation. The Knights put the tying run in scoring position with one out in the bottom of the seventh, but the Henryetta squad was unable to score the run, suffering the 9-8 defeat. Jean Pixler gave up nine runs on 13 hits with three strikeouts and two walks in six and one-third innings of work to be saddled with the pitching loss. Ethan Wincle recorded the final two outs in the seventh in relief for Henryetta. Montgomery led the offensive attack for the Knights, going 3 for 5 with a pair of singles, a double, and 3 RBIs. The final four hits for Henryetta against Catoosa came on singles by Pixler and Drew Brown, an RBI single by Wincle, and a 2-run single by Andrew Morris. The other baserunners for the Knights against Catoosa were Brown (hit by pitch), Pixler (walk), Ethan Palmer (2 walks, hit by pitch), Jerad Fife (2 walks), Brodie Graffman (walk, hit by pitch), and Jeremiah Boyles (2 walks). ---