Newberry Academy held scoreless in home loss against King Academy

NEWBERRY — The Newberry Academy Eagles varsity baseball team remain win less for the season as they loss their sixth consecutive game on Friday afternoon. The Eagles(0-6, 0-3 region A-IV SCISA) fell 9-0 to King Academy(4-3, 2-2 region A-IV SCISA).

The Eagles and the Knights got together twice last week for two important early season region matchups. The Knights won the first game 14-4 on Tuesday, March 25. The Eagles were looking to get revenge at home on Friday, March 28th. Unfortunately, that did not happen as they were held scoreless despite a strong pitching effort from eighth grade sensation Hudson Long.

The visiting Knights got things going early in the first inning and put up three quick runs on the scoreboard to take an early 3-0 lead. The Eagles didn’t back down and found themselves in a great position to answer the Knights as they had bases loaded at the bottom of the first inning with two outs. The Eagles couldn’t capitalize on the opportunity and left the three runners stranded as the side retired. That would become the theme for Newberry Academy’s offense throughout the game.

Long shook off the rough start to the game and retired all three batters he faced in the second inning, which included two strike outs. The Eagles offense couldn’t get anything going at the bottom half of the second inning and the score remained 3-0 going into the third inning.

Misfortune struck the Eagles again at the top of third inning as an error allowed a base runner and two base hits end up driving two more runs home to add to King Academy’s lead. The visitors had a 5-0 lead going into the bottom of the third inning.

Newberry Academy answered and were able to put base runners on second and third, but history repeated itself. The Eagles left two base runners stranded that could’ve possibly cut the deficit.

The eighth grader had another masterful inning at the top of fourth. Long added another two strike outs to his total for the day and gave up just one hit in the inning. He repeated the same thing at the top of the fifth inning.

Senior first baseman Jodie Ray Miles got the Eagles off to a strong start in the inning with a hard hit ball to the outfield for a single. The home team couldn’t find a way to get him home for a score and another base runner was left stranded.

Thomas McLean relieved Long on the mound at the top of sixth inning and the Knights were able to take advantage of the pitching change. They added three runs at the top of the sixth inning to increase their lead yet again.

The bottom of the sixth inning was crucial for the home team with time running out in the game. They left a base runner stranded at third and that all but concluded the game. King was able to add another run at the top of seventh inning and Newberry Academy had no juice left to inspire a comeback at the bottom of the seventh inning.

Long had a strong five inning outing with five strike outs while giving up a few hits and only four walks.

“That kid has thrown two good outings. Last week against Wardlaw, we lost 4-3, but he threw 76 pitches. Now, you can’t ask for nothing better than that from an eighth grader. Tonight, he threw 70 but we have to play him under the sub-varsity rules, ” said Eagles head coach Ronny Bannister. “If I could throw him for 110 pitches like I can for the rest of the bullpen, I don’t know where we would be at right now. The kid can play and I can’t wait until he gets to be a sophomore. He’s going to be fun to watch and he’s going to be a good one.”

The Eagles two or more base runners stranded in two innings and left at least one base runner stranded in four of the seven innings.

“I gave them my famous ‘lion speech’ tonight. He’s not biggest in the jungle nor is he the smartest or the fastest, but he see’s dinner when he see’s an elephants. That’s where we got to get. We have to figure out a way to be the lion in the jungle and that’s what we gone do,” said Bannister. “The message today was we have a whole season ahead of us. We have not peaked and when we do, that mean’s we have won four or five games in a row and we are back in the playoffs race again. We will just come out on Monday and get better.”

Newberry Academy will be off for a few days then return to action on April 1 for a road region contest against Richard Winn.