CHOCOWINITY — Mother Nature had her way with Southside’s senior night. The Seahawks were originally slated to host rival Northside on Thursday evening, but the game was postponed to Saturday morning. Weather continued to be an issue as the game had to be moved to Chocowinity Middle School at the last minute.

Timely hitting coupled with stellar pitching from sophomore Tanner Alligood was enough to power Northside to an 8-0 win. The shutout loss spoiled the final regular-season home game for the five Seahawk seniors: Terry Moore, Dylan Lewis, Lawrence Brown, Josh Crance and Chase Nobles.

“You always want the seniors to go out with a victory,” Southside coach Kevin McRoy said. “They’ve worked so hard for three or four years. You want to go out on top just as a reward for all the hard work they’ve put in for the program. We couldn’t as for a better group of guys.”

The Panthers struck quickly in the top of the first. Parker Boyd singled and Alligood reached thanks to an error. Both moved into scoring position on a passed ball. Brock Marsh drew a walk to load the bases with one out. Boyd came in on Jensen Hawkins’ groundout to Moore on the mound. After the run, the Seahawks bounced back with a fly out to centerfield to escape the inning with minimal damage.

Northside added a pair of two-out runs in the second to take a 3-0 lead. Ethan Cosentino reached on an error at second. He stole second, positioning himself to score on Matthew Marslender’s base hit to center. An error at shortstop brought Marslender home.

Southside’s defense bounced back after committing three errors in the first two innings. The defense got better as the game went on, but still struggled to overcome Northside’s batting. There were struggles at the plate, too, as the Seahawks were retired in order in the second and third innings.

“We made contact, just not good contact,” McRoy said. “Defensively, we didn’t play bad. They just got base hits when they needed to We didn’t and that was pretty much the difference in the game. If you put the bat on the ball and put it in play, you give yourself a chance to win.

“We struggled early on defensively. We came around and played better. It’s good to see we’re playing defense.”

The Panthers exploded for four runs in the fourth. Six straight batters reached base after Marslender started the inning with a strikeout. Marsh and Sauls each belted RBI doubles in the inning.

“It was awesome. We finally played a complete baseball game,” Northside coach Keith Boyd said. “We had great pitching. Tanner did a great job on the mound. We had great defense behind him. I don’t think we had an error. There was timely hitting and good baserunning. That’s about as good as we can play right there. If we can do that, going into the playoffs, I think we’re a tough out no matter where we land.”

Paul Radford, who had just taken over pitching duties for Moore, fanned Cosentino and induced a groundout to shortstop. He got out of the inning, but the Seahawks faced a seemingly insurmountable deficit.

Northside added one more run in the seventh. The defense made short work of the Seahawks, who only sent eight batters to the plate in the final two frames. Alligood struck out four in the last two innings.

“It’s a sophomore getting older,” Boyd said of Alligood’s performance. “If all those guys continue to do that, we can do some good things down the road — especially if we get good pitching like that. We just played complete today.”

Northside improves to 10-13 on the season and is now focused on the playoffs. Southside falls to 8-12 overall, possibly putting them just out of reach of the postseason. Regardless, the Seahawks will go back to the drawing board. McRoy is concentrated on putting together a complete game so they will be able to put up a fight should they land in the playoffs.

“If we make the playoffs, it’s a whole new season. Everybody starts at 0-0,” McRoy said.