The Burleson Elks gave No. 1 Cleburne a battle through five innings before the Yellow Jackets plated four runs over the final two innings for a 6-1 win Wednesday night at Yellow Jacket Field. Cleburne improved to 19-1-1 overall and won its 15 consecutive game, but more importantly, the Jackets improved to 5-0 in District 9-5A play, tied for first place with Joshua. After Burleson (2-3 in 9-5A) pushed across a run in the top of the second to tie the game at 1-1, Cleburne took a 2-1 lead in the third inning. Holding onto a one-run lead, Cleburne managed to get some wiggle room with two runs in the fifth inning and two more runs in the sixth. “We had to have some cushion,” Cleburne Coach Ross Taylor said. “For the first five innings, we just kind of sat around and let them stay in the game. The thing is, everybody's got to understand it's about going out and grinding; doing what you do every day, getting a good pitch to swing at and swinging at it. It's kind of like we took good pitches and ended up swinging at some we probably shouldn't have.” Cleburne was held to just three base hits through the first five innings before the Jackets finished with four base hits over the final two innings for seven total base hits in addition to seven walks drawn. “It's the nature of the game that you're hot sometime and cold sometime,” Taylor said. “It seemed like we had a lot of guys not swinging the bat well tonight. Part of that may have been their pitching, I don't know. I didn't think their guy was overpowering and he stayed around the strike zone and gave us a lot of opportunities.” Cleburne junior pitcher Willie Rangel claimed his third win in district play as he pitched five innings and allowed three hits, five walks and one run with 10 strikeouts. “I thought he did all right, but he had too many 3-2 counts, and too often he had to work back from being down in the count,” Taylor said. “Then, sometimes trying too hard to get a strikeout instead of understanding a ground ball to [second baseman Javier Torres] is pretty good.” The Jackets struck first in the bottom of the first as Torres hit a one-out single. After he advanced to third on a Burleson error on a pickoff attempt, Torres later scored on a dropped third strike. Burleson quickly answered as T.J. Pound led off the top of the second with a double. After advancing to third on a groundout, Pound scored on an RBI single by Isiah Smith for a 1-1 game. In the bottom of the third, Torres led things off with a walk then stole second base. Slayton Day followed with a single, which moved Torres up to third. Torres scored the go-ahead run on a first-and-third double steal. Cleburne started to pull away from Burleson in the fifth as Day and Marcos Guereca led the inning off with back-to-back walks. After an Elks' pitching change, Landon Cody loaded the bases on a hit-by-pitch. Rangel made it 3-1 with a sacrifice fly, scoring Day. A Dryden Taylor single then reloaded the bases, and pinch hitter Prestyn Hewitt hit a sacrifice fly, scoring Guereca for a 4-1 lead. In the top of the sixth, Burleson drew back-to-back walks to put two on with no outs as Rangel reached the pitch count limit. Taylor brought Coy Sims in to finish it off, and Sims struck out the next three batters to end the Elks' comeback threat. Sims threw nine strikes before throwing his first ball, and he needed only 13 pitches to strike out the side. “That was huge by him,” Taylor said. “I thought Coy really showed a lot of growth tonight in his approach at the mound in terms of he was downhill and had a good down angle on his fast ball, and he mixed in his slider a couple of times. I was really happy with the way he performed.” Rangel and Sims combined to hold Burleson to just four base hits on the night. In the home half of the sixth, Day hit a two-out triple then Guereca followed with an RBI single. Cody capped the scoring with an RBI single to score Guereca. In the top of the seventh, Sims worked around a single and an error as he got a pair of flyouts to end the game. Day led the Jackets with a 2-for-3 effort including two runs scored and a walk. Torres went 1-for-3 with two runs scored and a walk. Cody went 1-for-2 with an RBI and walk. Guereca went 2-for-3 with two runs scored, an RBI and a walk. Kayden Cassidy pitched four innings for Burleson as he allowed three hits, seven walks and four runs with six strikeouts. The Jackets are scheduled to face Granbury at 7 p.m. Thursday. “It's another district game so it's another chance for us to take a step toward what we want to do,” Taylor said. “Hopefully we'll play the way we're capable of.” The game was originally scheduled to be played at Granbury, but will be played in Cleburne because of wet field conditions at Granbury.