By KEVIN ECKLEBERRY

Daily News

CEDARTOWN – The LaGrange Grangers dropped a 5-4 heart-breaker to the home-standing Cedartown Bulldogs on Wednesday.

Cedartown scored the tying run in the seventh inning before pushing a run across in the bottom of the eighth to win it.

The loss put an end to the Grangers’ five-game winning streak and dropped them to 5-3 in Region 5-AAAA.

Cedartown, which lost to LaGrange on Monday, improved to 4-2 in the region.

The Grangers took the lead in Wednesday’s game with a pair of runs in the fifth inning, and they remained on top until the Bulldogs tied it in the bottom of the seventh.

Cedartown won it on Jerry Simmons’ RBI single with two outs in the eighth inning.

LaGrange lost despite getting a superb pitching performance from Walton Lanier, who started and threw the first 6 2/3 innings.

Lanier worked around six hits and three walks to allow three earned runs.

After Cedartown tied it in the seventh, Charles Crawford entered the game in relief for LaGrange and got a strikeout with the winning run on third base.

In the eighth inning, Cedartown had men on first and second with two outs when Simmons ended the suspense with his game-winning hit.

The Grangers scored single runs in the first and second innings and two runs in the fifth.

Will Alford had a two-out RBI single in the first inning, and Crawford tripled and scored on an error in the second inning.

During the two-run fifth inning, Lanier singled and later scored when Alford reached on an error.

Crawford followed with an RBI single to give LaGrange the 4-3 advantage.

Crawford had a big day for the Grangers with three hits and an RBI, and Lanier had two hits from the leadoff position.

Alford had a hit and an RBI, and Will Flowers and Matthew Morgan each had a hit.

LaGrange has a non-region home game against Northgate today, with first pitch set for 1 p.m.

LaGrange returns to region play with a game at Central-Carroll on Monday.