PINETOWN — Northside snapped a five-game losing streak Friday evening with a decisive 12-3 win over Lejeune on senior night. The youthful Panthers squad has stumbled through the final stretch of the season, but seems to have gathered itself ahead of Thursday’s season finale at Southside and the looming playoffs.

Prior to the game, per senior-night tradition, parents, fans and fellow Panther athletes congregated around the baseball field. Chase Sauls was awarded the 2016 Bryan Keith Woolard Memorial Scholarship.

Woolard is a former Northside baseball standout. He was once named the team’s Defensive Player of the Year and Most Valuable Player.

“If you ask him what he was going to school for, it was to play baseball,” said Keith Woolard during the ceremony. “If you asked him what his major was, he tried to say business. They thought that, but it was baseball.”

Woolard tragically passed away in an automobile accident in 2009. Since then, a scholarship has been created and awarded annually to a graduating senior baseball player. The $500 award is given to a deserving senior to help pay for his first year of college.

Sauls is the eighth player to benefit from the scholarship, which remembers one of the greatest Panthers to ever grace the diamond, as well as a loving son, father, husband and teammate.

“It was unexpected. I was honored to receive it and to honor Bryan Keith Woolard and his love of baseball,” Sauls said. “I was really surprised and just excited to receive it.”

Sauls and his teammates were able to follow up the touching pregame ceremony with an important conference win. Sauls played his part by taking over pitching duties and closing out the seventh frame.

This season, Sauls is batting just north of .200. He’s scored nine runs and batted in another half dozen. He’s 8-for-8 on stolen-base attempts, helping to drive Northside’s offense through his aggressive baserunning. He’s shined defensively with an error-free season and two wins on the mound.