The Cranberry baseball team lost its fourth straight game Thursday, a 7-2 loss against Harris at Mine Creek in Bakersville. However, Cranberry head baseball coach Phillip Greene was very much encouraged by the latter part of that game.
Starting the third inning down 6-0, Cranberry (0-4) battled back to within striking distance. Harris only scored one run the rest of the game, and the Wildcats had the bases loaded when they got their third out in the bottom of the sixth.
The sixth inning Greene called "the culmination of all the work we've done this year."
Stetson Stafford pitched the fifth and sixth innings, while Austin Daniels started the game. Daniels bounced back from what Greene and others believed was a wrong call in the first inning, in which a Harris player was called safe.
Greene doesn't pin the loss on that controversial call, but he does think the game could have turned out differently. "After that point they [Harris] went on to score three or four runs in the first inning," said Greene. Daniels was rattled, he said, but according to the coach, the pitcher settled down.
"They fought hard to come back from something like that," Greene said of his squad.
The Wildcats' scores came from Gabe Stanley and Jeremiah Vance.
The Harris game came on the heels of 13-2 and 15-2 losses in a doubleheader against Bowman on Monday, March 15. Cranberry's next scheduled game is on Thursday, April 1.
Cranberry
The Lady Wildcats, meanwhile, lost 10-1 on Thursday, also against Harris. Cranberry (0-4) starting pitcher Emily Brown pitched a solid effort, but the team struggled to get the bats going. Head coach Angel Dugger thought they did "100 percent better" in this game than they did two games ago at
"The girls played awesome defensively," she said. "All of our outfielders made catches yesterday; every infielder had an awesome stop or catch."
The coach hopes the hitting will come around as the girls get more experience against unfamiliar pitchers. "Our girls scrimmaged for a little while [after the game], and as soon as the game was officially over, they started hitting everything," she said.
Last week's other game was a 24-2 loss at Bowman on Tuesday. The Lady Wildcats' next scheduled game is on Tuesday, March 30.
Avery
The Avery Middle Lady Panthers played its second game of the season in
"We hit the ball well; we made a lot of contact," said coach Chris Lecka. "Overall, I was pleased with the way they played."
Kylie Polsgrove and Shannon Smith scored runs for Avery (1-1). Lecka called East Yancey a "really good" team whose girls have been playing together a long time. "They play six or seven months out of the year together," he said. "And we play two months."
Lecka was pleased with pitchers Morgan Lecka and Ashley Yoder, as they held the opponents' runs enough to get Avery through a full seven innings.
The Lady Panthers are scheduled to host East Yancey on Thursday and
Avery
After beginning its season with a win,
"We should have beat
Johnson said it was a typical early season game, and as with all the middle school teams this spring, they haven't had much practice outside yet.
Friday saw Avery (1-2) hit much better than they had in the previous games, said Johnson, adding that the Panthers need to put together a game in which both offense and defense perform well.
"Potentially, we have a pretty good shot," he said. "I think we can compete with everybody."
Ty Polsgrove pitched in the East Yancey game, and Daniel Childress in the
The Panthers have a full schedule in front of them, hosting East Yancey on Thursday (at Newland Elementary,
Avery
The Avery High School JV baseball team took advantage of the break in poor weather to play three road games last week.
The Vikings fell 9-0 on Tuesday at Owen. Dillon Nelson got the start for the Big Red against a potent Owen offense that tallied one run in the first, two runs in the second, three in the third inning, two runs in the fourth frame, and a run in the bottom of the fifth and final inning.
“I was proud of the adjustments our kids made through the game, with our pitchers throwing strikes at Owen,” JV head coach Samuel Phillips remarked. “Overall I was pleased with how we played.”
On Wednesday the Vikings traveled to
TJCA fielded an experienced group of players and captured a 9-3 win over the Vikings Trailing 7-0 in the top of the fourth frame, the Big Red’s bats heated up, plating three runs in the inning to cut the lead to 7-3. Thomas Jefferson regrouped, however, to score a pair of insurance runs in the fifth inning to secure the conference win.
“We seemed a little unprepared mentally for the game. A lot of it comes down to us being able to practice and get on the field,” Coach Phillips said after the game. “We didn’t execute in some aspects of the contest which hurt us in the later innings of the game. If we play as well as we’re capable of and we throw strikes, I feel that was a different ball game.”
Nathaniel Buchanan started the Thomas Jefferson contest on the mound, with Dustin Clark and Lane Smith coming on in relief. “Lane did a good job coming in the game. Unfortunately Dustin recorded two-thirds of an inning for us but couldn’t get the third out, so Lane came in to finish the inning and worked the rest of the game,” Coach Phillips explained.
The early season continues to be a trial-and-error process as the team balances its limited practice time thus far with making improvements to benefit the club.
“Right now I’m looking for people who can throw strikes and we’re try to figure out how to get our ducks in a row, giving these kids time on the field and making adjustments to help us down the road,” the coach said.
The JV squad played at
