The Demopolis junior varsity baseball team (3-2) capitalized on Bill Holemon’s pitching gem to beat 6A Northridge 3-0 Thursday night.

“He’s done a great job all year,” JV head coach Russell Bedingfield said of Holemon. “He’s thrown nothing but strikes. He’s got a really slow curveball that seems to fool them a little bit. He does a good job of throwing strikes and giving us a chance to win.”

Holemon recorded four strikeouts over five innings of two-hit baseball to lead Demopolis. Holemon also relied considerably on his defensive support, utilizing a 4-6-3 double play to end the fourth inning.

“We made plays tonight,” Bedingfield said. “And the plays we didn’t make, we were diving and getting dirty.”

Offensively, the junior Tigers did the bulk of their damage in the second inning when Thomas Cramer launched a solo shot deep into the night air beyond center field.

“It just feels great,” Cramer, who went 2-for-2 with a pair of RBIs Tuesday night, said of his first homerun. “I feel more comfortable at the plate this year.”

Later in the same inning, Taylor Polk turned on a ball, rocketing it out over the left field fence to stretch the Demopolis lead to 2-0.

“We hit well tonight,” Bedingfield said. “Even the balls that weren’t hits were hard hit balls. We had a lot of hits to the opposite field.”

Demopolis added to its lead in the third inning when Alex Sturdivant dropped down a suicide squeeze bunt that plated Chris Adams.

“We’re going to do a lot of squeezing,” Bedingfield said. “These kids are great. They’re scrappy kids. They do everything right. Great kids. They’re winners. They love the game.”

“We still need work,” Cramer said. “We can get better. But we’re practicing and we’re getting better everyday.”