Lakeside's Jonathan Whittington Tosses No-Hitter At North Atlanta

senior pitcher Jonathan Whittington studied history in the classroom Friday afternoon, and then made it Friday evening on the mound at North Atlanta High School.

Whittington utilized an impressive repertoire of pitches, mixing fastballs and curveballs, recording six strike out to pace the Vikings to a 5-1 win over the Warriors.

“I had my fastball going and I was hitting my spots,” said Whittington. “I got down in the count a couple of times but I came through with my curveball.”

Despite his stellar performance, Whittington’s evening got off to a bit of a rocky start in the first inning.

Against just the third batter he would face, the Lakeside pitcher made a mental error that nearly cost his team.

With two outs, Whittington scooped up a soft grounder at the edge of the pitcher’s mound, looked to first base, and fired the ball about five feet over his first baseman’s head into the wall along the third baseline. However, a friendly ricochet allowed first baseman Dickeron to throw out the sliding North Atlanta runner at second base and the Vikings escaped the first inning unscathed.

“In the first inning, I was just getting the nerves out a little bit. I made a bad throw, came in [to the dugout] after the inning and got my head back and I was good to go,” said Whittington. “I can’t let one play get me down the rest of the game.”

Whittington and the Vikings breathed a collective sigh of relief, and with a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the second, Whittington stepped back on the mound, looked toward his catcher, Kyle Newsome, and fired away.

Whittington struck out the first batter he faced in the second and continued to baffle the Warrior hitters the rest of the evening with an array of different pitches and pitch locations.

The Vikings gave their pitcher some run support in the top of the sixth inning with the game knotted at 1-1, mounting a four-run rally with some aggressive two-out base running.

After reaching third on a sacrifice grounder, Viking senior Bradley Dennis snuck home on a passed ball for the go-ahead run, putting his team in front 2-1.

Later in the inning with runners on first and second, Lakeside junior Daniel Comer smacked an RBI single up the middle to give the Vikings the 3-1 advantage.

The Vikings pushed across two more runs in the sixth to go up 5-1 before Whittington returned to the hill in the seventh to try to preserve his no-hitter and the victory for the visitors.

Whittington’s no-hit bid was nearly ended by the first batter he faced in the seventh inning. Warrior senior Chase McCracken grounded to short but reached first safely after the throw couldn’t be collected in time by Dickerson. The play was ruled an error however, and Whittington reloaded to face the next Warrior batter, sophomore Jackson Echols.

With one out, Whittington struck out Echols but the Vikings’ catcher Newsome dropped the third strike. However, Newsome ended the game in spectacular fashion by scooping up the ball and throwing out the Warrior base runner at second to end the game and to give Whittington the no-hitter.

“It was a good win. We’re a young, inexperienced team so it’s good to win games like that on the road,” said Vikings head coach Bill Newsome.