The feeling of summer has definitely taken over and with that leads to a lot of coverage for baseball. Last night I had the Stratford and FPD game, a game that showed both the good and the bad of high school baseball games. It also became one of my most frustrating nights as a deadline sports writer.
Thursday nights game was at Stratford, which has a great facility and has had some excellent baseball teams over the last decade. The 7:00 pm start time on week night is not a great starting time for newspaper people, so I was hoping for a quick game and quick interviews so I could get the story in by 9:30.
Stratford was coming off of a 21-2 loss to Tattnall, but played fairly solid and had a 1-0 lead after three innings. FPD got the lead back and led 3-1 going into the last inning,(it should have been 2-1 except for a costly 2 out error) but the Eagles just fell apart in the last inning and made it look like a blowout when it ended 13-1. The scoreboard said 5 errors in Stratford, but I was sitting with Stratford people and we counted at least six errors in the seventh inning alone, to go with at least three during the rest of the game. Jackson Pyles pitched a great game for Stratford and kept his team in the game for six innings, but his defense did not return the favor.
Meanwhile Austin Cox, a Mercer signee was tested, but pitched through trouble in several innings to get a win, and also gave a great interview after the game. He will do FPD and Mercer proud.
My views of these two teams is that Chance Reynolds and Stratford are obviously a little bit down this year talent wise, but really, they played well for six innings. The last inning wasn't bad, it was maybe the worst fielding inning I have ever seen in a high school baseball game, and it left Reynolds almost speechless after the game. But Reynolds is probably on of the two or three best coaches in Middle Georgia and he will fix what's broken.
FPD doesn't really do anything special on the baseball field but they are solid all the way around. They are in a battle with Mount de Sales for the second spot in the region. Denny Bryant is in his first year as the head coach and his kids play hard but something is missing and I cant really put my finger on it. They are 14-3 on the year, but a lot of these wins are gimme wins against weak Macon schools. It will be interesting to see what they can do the rest of the year and if they can take another step and challenge Tattnall.
Now last night I was on deadline and I was rushing all over the place to get stuff done. I got home at 9:40 on a 10:00 pm or so deadline and of course my computer would not recognize my email and it just kept doing the spinny thing that we all hate so much. After 15 minutes of it and several words that I will not put on here, I actually had to go to my neighbors house to get the story in. The story was not great I will admit, but I did the best I could on a frustrating night.
Note to John, take the work computer home so you will have a back-up.
Note to Stratford, 6:00pm start times are becoming quite popular
Note to FPD, you dont have to steal a base when you are leading 9-1
Have a great Friday everyone
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