Pike baseball, softball prepping for tourney in very different ways
Published 8:45 pm Wednesday, March 12, 2014
Team from across the state of Alabama will converge on Troy over the next three days to take part in the Jonah McWaters Tournament at Pike Liberal Arts.
The Pike baseball and softball teams will play host to Tuscaloosa Academy, Ashford Academy, Abbeville Christian, Emmanuel Christian and Crenshaw Christian among others.
Baseball coach Butch Austin gave his players the day off on Wednesday, sort of.
The Pats traded gloves and bats for rakes and trash bags for a clean-up day in preparation for the tournament.
“I am going to give them the day off on Wednesday,” said Austin. “They kids are tired, and I’m tired. We are going to clean up and get the field looking nice.”
The Lady Pats softball team did practice Wednesday, as head coach Allie Park said her team had plenty of things to work on.
Pike lost a pair of region games to Macon-East Montgomery on Tuesday.
The Lady Patriots had a handful of mistakes in the doubleheader.
“We have some things to clean up,” said Park. “We have a system where we the next day at practice we work on what we struggled with the day before. We are hitting the ball well, but need to work on fielding and base running. We will get there.
Both Pike Liberal teams will get the tournament underway at 10 a.m. against Abbeville Christian.