EDITOR'S NOTE: This story was updated Friday, March 31, to reflect comments from Shane Hooper.

BAGDAD — Fifteen up and 15 down.

There’s something about a perfect score sheet that demands admiration, even it if is just a five-inning affair.

But that’s high school baseball for you, where rubber arms, 10-run rules and no pitches after the sun goes down still exist.

Shane Hooper needed only 56 pitches to carve up the Ray lineup in an 11-0 win Saturday, recording nine strikeouts in five innings of work while allowing no hits, no walks, no hit batters and more importantly, no runs.

"It feels pretty amazing to beat Ray, let alone off a perfect game," Hooper said via text to AzPreps365.com. "It feels even better beating Ray because my team lost against them in the semifinal game my freshman year, that was the last time I pitched against them."

While Hooper was mostly concerned about sweet revenge, he said a teammate told him he was close to completing a perfect game.

"I normally don’t think about things like that, I just try having fun up on the mound and thinking about my next pitch, but in the last inning I threw, my third baseman friend, Deegan Owings, made sure to let me know I was throwing a perfect game," Hooper said.

This isn't the first time the junior hurler has chased perfection. Hooper threw a no-no against Mohave Accelerated a season ago, and when he was 11, he helped beat the Prescott All-Stars off the mound.

"Other than that I have never experienced anything like the feeling I had of throwing a perfect game this past weekend," Hooper said.

Of course, Hooper didn't stop there. He also went 3 for 3 at the dish with a double and two runs scored for Bagdad, which plated four runs in the third and six in the fourth to blank Ray 11-0 on Saturday afternoon.

Tanner Decker was 1 for 3 with a double and two RBIs, while Nick Martinez was 2 for 2 with two runs scored and an RBI.

Four other players had at least one RBI, including Jayce Myers, who was 1 for 3 with a triple.

Bagdad (9-2, 2-0 1A West) has now strung together five straight wins, including a 9-0 rout over North Valley Christian on March 28.

UP NEXT

The No. 5-ranked Sultans head south to Chandler to play in the Epic Tourneys Baseball Classic on March 30 and April 1. Their opponents have yet to be announced.

Watch AzPreps365.com for more information.

Brian M. Bergner Jr. has covered professional, collegiate and high school sports for more than 20 years. Follow him on Twitter @AzPreps365Brian. Have a story idea? Email Brian at bbergner@azpreps365.com.