 Mountaintop Sports made its way to Hillard Howard Field on Friday night for the much anticipated battle of Pike County between defending class 1A champion Pikeville and class 3A champion Belfrey. Pikeville overcame an 8-point first half deficit to knock off the Pirates 20-14. It marked the first time the Panthers have won back-to-back games since 1999 and 2000 against Belfrey. The game was tied 14-all at halftime and the Panthers scored the only points of the second half on Zach Lockhart's 5-yard pass from quarterback Isaac McNamee with 10 minutes and 21 seconds left to play. Belfrey now 1-in-1 had scored on their first two possessions of the game, but was held scoreless the rest of the way. Pirate running back Isaac Dixon scored on an 8-yard run in the first period to put the Pirates up 7-0. The Panthers came back and closed with them 1-7-6 on Blake Birchfield's 2-yard run. They pushed its lead out to 14-6 with 1 minute 5 seconds left in the first quarter. The key play of the game came when Birchfield scooped up Dixon's fumble at the 22-yard line and returned it for a score with 5 minutes 16 seconds left before the break. His 2-point conversion run pulled the Panthers even. Pikeville's defense held Belfrey inside the Panthers 20-yard line with 3 minutes and 29 seconds to play. For a complete listing of Friday night's other games, visit melton-topsports.com. With Mountain Top Sports, I'm Cody Davis.