Gators down Pike Liberal with big sixth inning
Published 10:26 pm Monday, February 24, 2014
An explosive sixth inning from the Glenwood Academy Gators prove to be to much for the Pike Liberal Arts Patriots on Monday evening as they would fall by a score of 6-1.
The game remained scoreless for both schools prior to the Glenwood barrage in the sixth despite multiple runners being left on base by both teams.
Senior Tullie Everett pitched four scoreless innings for the Patriots before being replaced by Sophomore Jarrett Jordan in the fifth.
Jordan would strike out the last two batters of the fifth after allowing the first four batters of the inning on base to escape with the bases loaded.
After striking out the first Gator of the sixth he would walk the next two, then an infield-error would pull the string that unraveled into a quick six-run advantage for Glenwood Academy.
A single by senior Brian Adams early in the final frame would send in senior Chandler Avant as the lone run for the Patriots. Adams would finish the day 3-4 with and RBI from the plate.
Patriots head coach Butch Austin left the game with a few questions about his team’s current batting situation.
We just can’t hit when we get runners on, and when they get runners on we get errors,” Austin said. “That’s something we’ve usually never done, we usually make our hits when we need them but we can’t do it this year.”
The Patriots left six runners on base for the game, including three in the fourth and two after the lone run by Adams in the seventh.
Although he doesn’t feel as though his team is performing well early in the season he is confident that time and hard work can do wonders.
“Practice, we need to practice two or three days and I think we can get it fixed,” Austin said. “Once we get down the line some we’re going to be a good team. We just can’t hit when we need to hit, maybe somewhere down the line we will”
The Patriots are scheduled to see Glenwood on Tuesday. After the rematch with the Gators, Pike will return to action Thursday at home against Lee Scott, first pitch is set for 3:30 p.m.