The Mortimer Jordan baseball team (10-5, 1-1) has opened the Class 5A, Area 11 portion of its schedule with a split against St. Clair County.

The tenth-ranked Blue Devils opened the area series with a 7-4 road win over the Saints on Tuesday thanks in large part to four runs scored in the first inning. Garek Hall and Will Allman both logged 3-for-4 efforts at the dish for Mortimer Jordan.

The action moved to Kimberly on Thursday in a doubleheader, which was split to grant the Blue Devils a tiebreaker advantage over St. Clair County, if needed.

Mortimer Jordan struggled to string offense together in a 7-5 loss, but recovered for an 11-3 win in the rubber match.

Head coach Shayne Carnes and the boys are back at home Saturday against Hayden. The doubleheader is scheduled to start at 12 p.m.

The Corner baseball team (8-2, 0-2) didn’t get the Class 5A, Area 11 start it was looking for.

Springville took the series with a 6-5 win on Tuesday followed by a Thursday win to improve to 2-0 in Area 11 play. The Yellow Jackets, ranked No. 8 in the first ASWA poll of the season, get back to action on Friday afternoon at Dora.

The Gardendale baseball team (8-5) hit the road for a 12-4 win over Homewood in non-area play on Thursday.

Junior Hunter Stokes recorded the win in 4 1/3 innings of work. He allowed three runs (two of them earned) on four hits to go with five strikeouts. Senior Michael Crowder stepped in for the save in 2 2/3 innings worked.

Gardendale shined on the offensive end, scoring three runs in the third, a singe run in the fourth, five more in the sixth and three runs in the seventh. Austin Burdette drove home four runs on a pair of doubles for the Rockets. He had plenty of help from David Harris (3-for-4 with two RBIs), Keegan Hudson (2-for-3 with a sacrifice fly) and Crowder (3-for-4 with a double).

Gardendale visits Brookwood on Saturday at 2:30 p.m.

The Corner softball team (9-6, 1-1) evened up its Class 5A, Area 11 series with Mortimer Jordan (11-9, 1-1) on Thursday night.

After falling by a final of 7-4 in Kimberly on Tuesday, the Yellow Jackets returned the favor with an 11-10 home win last night. Corner swung out to an early 10-4 lead thanks to four runs scored in the first frame, another in the second and five more in the third.

No. 5 Mortimer Jordan did manage to even things up with a six-run fourth inning, but Corner scored the go-ahead run in the bottom of the sixth and held strong on defense. Cailey Parker (four innings) and Ivey Hill (three innings) shared the pitching duties for the Yellow Jackets.

The Gardendale softball team continued its strong start on Thursday with a 5-4 home win over Jasper. That final improves the top-ranked Rockets to 28-1 on the year.

Junior Kaitlyn Clark recorded 10 strikeouts and allowed four earned runs on seven hits in a complete game thrown. Her best friend was center fielder Savannah Pennington, who slapped in three runs for Gardendale. Jaycee Dill drove home another run in the tightly-contested win.

The Rockets host No. 4 Hayden next Tuesday at 5 p.m.

On Tuesday night the Gardendale girls soccer team earned a runaway victory over Jasper. That 10-0 road win improves Gardendale to 7-0 in regular season play.

The Rockets are back at home next Tuesday with Carver-Birmingham at 5:30 p.m.

Erik Harris is the Sports Editor of The North Jefferson News. Email him at njnsports@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter @jeharris2.