North Pemiscot's Michael Gilboe (left) is congratulated by his teammates after hitting a grand slam against Delta C7 in the top of the sixth inning of Tuesday's high school baseball game at Deering. [Click to enlarge]

DEERING, Mo. -- It may not be too much of a stretch to say that being upset in the Class 1, District 1 semifinals last season may have sharpened the North Pemiscot Mustangs' focus for this season.

The Mustangs showcased that focus Tuesday, jumping out to a 5-0 lead after one inning and getting strong pitching from sophomore Parker Watkins in a 14-1 victory over the Delta C7 Chargers in a Tri-County Conference contest here Tuesday.

"Right now, everything we're doing is to eventually prepare for the district tournament," North Pemiscot coach Jamie Johnson said. "We're trying to get three or four guys ready to go in a rotation. I feel real good about our pitching and our defense right now."

Delta C7's James Blanton watches a pitch go by him during Tuesday's high school baseball game against North Pemiscot at Deering. [Click to enlarge]

North Pem (6-0) had both Tuesday, as Watkins struck out nine and allowed one run -- a sixth-inning home run by Arsenio Jones -- to earn the win, while the defense committed just one error on the day.

"He's a sophomore but he's one of our horses," Johnson said of Watkins. "It's kind of nice to have him healthy again. I thought he threw the ball well and threw a lot of strikes."

Meanwhile, Delta (1-1) struggled on defense at times, committing five errors that led to nine unearned runs.

"It's early in the season," Delta coach Lynn Yarbrough said. "We did play aggressive and made some miscues, but that's just going to come. As we get more experienced, we're going to improve in that area too. ... We definitely can improve on that. We have been working a lot on defense here lately and taking a lot of groundballs and flyballs. We're just going to have to improve."

The Mustangs took a 2-0 lead in the top of the first inning when Brandon Quillin singled home John Jackson and Josh Tomlin. Michael Gilboe doubled in Quillin for a 3-0 advantage before Todd Hoggard connected on a two-run homer to cap the first inning rally.

North Pem scored solitary runs in the second and fifth innings before erupting for seven runs in the top of the sixth to ice the game. Gilboe's grand slam to left provided the exclamation point and made it 13-0.

Gilboe had five RBIs on the day.

"That's another sophomore for us," Johnson said. "Michael's starting to play really well on the infield, and offensively he's starting to come around. He got a good pitch and drove it out of the ballpark today."

One bright spot for the Chargers Tuesday was junior hurler Sloan Richardson, who struck out 13 and walked three despite taking the loss. Richardson did not allow an earned run after the first inning.

"I thought Sloan settled down after the first inning," Yarbrough said. "The difference in the game, to me, was that just about every inning we had men in scoring position and just didn't get the clutch hit. ... When you get runners in scoring position, you got to hit the ball."

Indeed, Delta left eight runners on base Tuesday, including leaving the bases loaded in the third and fifth innings.

Gilboe and Tomlin were each 2-for-3 to pace the Mustangs Tuesday, while Hoggard, Quillin and Tomlin had two RBIs apiece.

Delta is off until next Wednesday when it hosts Cooter, while North Pem travels to Cooter Friday for a key conference and district showdown.