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Coming into Monday night’s game in Manchester, Cookeville baseball had not yet lost a Class 4A District 6 contest. Coffee County brought that streak to an end.

Looking to get back on track in district play after dropping a home-and-away series to Shelbyville last week, the Red Raiders got on the board early on the way to a 4-3 home win over the first-place Cavaliers.

“Really gutsy, I’ve told you a couple of times, gritty. We’re the most inconsistent team in the conference, but we can beat anybody on any given night,” Coffee County coach Jerry Pruitt said. “That’s a program-changing win right there.”

The Red Raiders got it going in the bottom of the first inning with a leadoff double from Davis McKenzie. Up next at the plate was Landan Abellana, who proceeded to knock the ball over the left field fence for a two-run home run.

Still up 2-0 heading into the bottom of the second, Grayson Sadler came up to bat and connected on a ground ball for a double. Matt Moore brought Sadler home not long after to make it a 3-0 Coffee County lead.

Cookeville began to cut back into it in the top of the third inning, starting with McKenzie hitting KJ Anderson with a pitch with the bases loaded to get the Cavaliers on the board. On the next at-bat, a balk brought in another Cookeville run and made it a 3-2 game with one out. McKenzie was able to get the strikeout before a groundout retired the side with the Red Raiders up by a run.

After a scoreless fourth inning, Cookeville opened the top of the fifth with a leadoff triple from Jackson Jones. Cole Teeters came to the plate next and brought Jones home to tie the game at 3-3. The Red Raiders proceeded to force a line out in right field courtesy of Hyatt Moss before McKenzie struck out the next two batters to prevent Cookeville from taking the lead.

Moore kicked off the bottom of the inning with a ground ball single. Shortly after, Abellana came to plate with Moore having stolen second on the previous at-bat. Abellana followed with a grounder out to left field, getting Moore home in the process to put Coffee County back up by one.

With Isaiah Deadman on the mound to close out the last two innings, the Red Raiders kept Cookeville from scoring another run and secured the win in the top of the seventh.

“We’ve told them all year that they can beat anybody on any given night, but we can also lose to anybody on any given night. Hopefully this flips the script and we can get going at the right time come the district tournament,” Pruitt said. “I told them just a minute ago that we went from probably the most hated team in the conference to probably the favorite because we just knocked off the team that nobody else had been able to, so if we go there and win (Tuesday) night, this district is flipped upside down.”

Coffee County connected on five hits over the course of the game, with two each for Abellana and Moore. McKenzie had one hit.

Abellana brought in three of the team’s four RBI, with Moore adding one.

McKenzie finished with eight strikeouts, four hits, three runs and two walks through the first five innings to secure the win. Deadman added three strikeouts and one hit over the final two innings to earn the save.

Coffee County (14-10, 3-2 district) travels to Cookeville for a road rematch against the Cavaliers Tuesday evening. First pitch is scheduled for 6 p.m.