FUQUAY-VARINA — The Holly Springs baseball team needed a little bit of luck in their Saturday game with Lee County of the Tri-Eight Conference, and luckily for the Golden Hawks, Lee has had as much good fortune as wins this season — zero.

With runners on first and second in the bottom of the seventh and the score tied 6-6, the Yellow Jackets (0-11) struck out Holly Springs batter Hayden Williams.

It should have been the final out and sent the game into extra innings but there was just one problem — the ball went into to the dirt and skipped into the backstop.

Williams, a junior, hauled his way down to first, bringing up Kyle Byrd with two outs and the bases loaded in a tied game.

Byrd didn’t even have to swing the bat.

The next pitch sailed wildly into the backstop, and HSHS pinch runner Sean Muchmore came across home plate for the winning run.

“If the other team makes mistakes you’ve got to take advantage,” Holly Springs coach Rod Whitesell said. “If you don’t take advantage you lose close ball games. If you take advantage I think you win close ball games.”

It was the second win of the Four Oaks Bank Tri-Eight Challenge in as many tries for the Hawks, as they also defeated Apex 7-5 on Thursday in spite of six errors.

While Holly Springs may have had trouble in the field against Apex, it was Lee that booted the ball around on Saturday.

The Jackets had just taken a 6-5 lead in the top of the sixth when Williams delivered a base knock to get aboard.

Williams went to steal second, and as he slid, the Lee pitcher hurriedly chucked the ball into shallow center field instead of his intended infielder.

The error proved costly as Williams turned it into a three-base error, dashing around third and then crossing home plate to tie the game.

“We kept fighting,” Whitesell said.

Holly Springs jumped out to a 3-0 lead after the first inning as the first five batters all reached base.

Starting HSHS pitcher Ethan Nunn gave up just five hits and one run in the first three innings, but three runs on four hits in the fourth inning as Lee took the lead 4-3.

Nunn was replaced in the fifth by Joe Mackey, who gave up a home run to Carson Wilson in his first inning of action, but later got out of a sixth-inning bases-loaded situation by forcing a double play.

Mackey also needed help earlier in the sixth, as Williams fired in a throw from the outfield to Wes Conover, who gunned down a Jacket runner trying to score from second.

“Mackey came in and did a good job pitching and we made defensive plays when we had to,” Whitesell said. Mackey picked up the win after allowing two runs in three innings of work.

Next year, Holly Springs might find themselves in this same round-robin tournament, but this time as a member of the Tri-Nine Conference as the school join Apex, Lee and the rest of the Tri-Eight teams.

“It’s exciting. The Tri-Eight is known traditionally as a good baseball conference and it’d be good to play those guys,” Whitesell said. “You hate to leave our conference because our conference is very tough ... it’s just a good opportunity either way.”

The Hawks still have one game to play in the challenge, as their game with Middle Creek was rained out on Thursday and scheduled for Wednesday, April 15.

Players like Williams, who was 2-for-4 on the day with one RBI, said the tournament has the team playing as good as ever.

“We’re getting closer as a team and working together,” Williams said.

Also leading the way for HSHS was Conover, who went 2-for-4 and a RBI double, and Jesse Sykes, who went 2-for-3 with two RBI.