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South forced to wait, then drills Churchill EUGENE -- Some miscommunication forced South Medford's baseball team to wait around five hours before taking the field Friday against Churchill. Once play finally began, the Panthers wasted little time in disposing of the Lancers with a 12-2 non-conference win in five innings. South Medford (6-2) scored twice in the first inning and six times in the second to take a commanding lead. The Panthers had hit the road planning on playing a doubleheader starting at 11 a.m., but found out to coach Pete Whisler's dismay that Churchill had the meeting penciled in as a solo affair at 4 p.m. The wasted time did little to slow down a South squad looking good heading into its SOC season-opener against Roseburg on Tuesday. "We're playing decent defense and our pitching's pretty good," said Whisler. "We're starting to come around offensively, and hopefully we can keep it up heading into league play." Winner Chris Empio allowed two hits and had four strikeouts in four innings. Tony Conklin pitched the fifth. Conklin also added three RBIs, while Josh Tompkins chipped in two RBIs and David Thrapp had three hits. After two singles in the second inning, Thrapp dropped down a perfect drag bunt to load the bases. Ryan Heil and Brett Haag each followed with RBI singles, with Tompkins and Conklin also driving in runs for the Panthers. South Medford ..........261 30 -- 12 12 1 Churchill ....................020 00 -- 2 3 1 Empio, Conklin (5) and Shine; Bernis, Warren (3), McDaniel (4) and Bradley. W -- Empio (2-0). L -- Bernis. 2B -- SM: Tompkins, Conklin, Shine. 3B -- SM: Skundrick. Softball SHELDON 3-3, CRATER 0-7 -- At Central Point, Kara Ray posted nine strikeouts and allowed only four hits but still took the loss for Crater in the first game. Undaunted, Ray came back in the second game to notch two hits in helping Andrea Perdue gain her first win of the season for the Comets (1-5). Addie Wiersma went 3-for-3 with three RBIs in the second game as seven different Comets crossed the plate in the team's highest scoring effort of the season. Perdue had five strikeouts and allowed three hits in the nightcap. FIRST GAME Sheldon ..........000 030 0 -- 3 4 1 Crater .............000 000 0 -- 0 3 2 Briggs and Cullop; Ray and Ridge. W -- Briggs. L -- Ray (0-2). 2B -- S: Barker; C: Perdue. SECOND GAME Sheldon ...............000 110 1 -- 3 3 4 Crater ..................024 100 x -- 7 9 3 Marshall, Briggs (2) and Cullop; Perdue and Ridge. W -- Perdue (1-2). L -- Briggs. 2B -- S: Cullop. Girls Track ST. MARY'S RUNNERS SHINE -- At Coquille, the St. Mary's contingent of two athletes -- distance runners Martina Patella and Leah Sawyer -- carried itself well in the Coquille Twilight Invitational. Patella captured the 3,000 meters with a time of 12 minutes, .7 seconds. Sawyer, a freshman placed second in both the 800 and 3,000. Her time in the 800 of 2:35.9 was an improvement over the mark she posted two weeks ago to start the season. She covered the 1,500 in 5:27.9. Today's Edition : News | Sports | Business | Weather | Tempo | Classifieds Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA