By HARVEY SIMPSON
Dispatch Sports Editor
FORSYTH — Fullington Academy’s Trojans gave up the same number of runs in a Saturday loss to Central Fellowship’s Lancers that they had scored in a Friday win over Griffin Christian’s Crusaders.
The split of the outcomes — a 9-8 victory and a 9-2 loss — forced coach John Brady’s Trojans to settle for runner-up honors in Monroe Academy’s Spring Classic.
“Naturally, we’d like to have won the tournament, but finishing second in it isn’t bad as it was a good learning experience for a lot of our guys, especially the younger ones who got extensive playing time,” Brady said.
“It was also good to see Kyle (Russell), Dylan (Gay) and K.C. (Beavers) make the all-tournament team.”
Now 2-2 overall, the Trojans will make their next start Tuesday at 4 in Valdosta against Valwood.
Lancers 9, Trojans 2
Russell got Fullington off to a good start in the championship contest, belting a first-inning solo homer. The Trojans also had a good finish, getting an RBI single from Dakota Hauesler in the seventh when they left the bases loaded.
In between those single scores, though, it was pretty much all Lancers as theyt put up two runs in the first, fifth and sixth frames and tallied three times in the fifth on their way to a relatively easy triumph.
“Even though we lost, I thought we played pretty well overall,” Brady said. “We made some defensive mistakes that cost us, though, and that’s the main thing we’ve got to clean up before we start region play.”
Hauesler, John Harvey and Casey Hogg shared the mound chores for Fullington, with the former saddled with the loss.
“Considering that all three of those guys are young and inexperienced and the fact that we didn’t give them real good defensive support, I thought they all pitched pretty well,” Brady said.
Trojans 9, Crusaders 8
In earning their spot in Saturday’s title game, the Trojans were forced to stage a late rally after squandering a four-run lead with the end of the game almost in sight..
Ahead 7-3 going into the last of the fifth, Fullington yielded three runs as Griffin Christian pulled to within 7-6 and then surrendered two more scores in the bottom of the sixth to fall behind 8-7.
The stage thus was set for the Trojans’ heroics in the seventh. Dylan Gay reached on an error and moments later raced home with the tying run as Hauesler also lived on a Crusaders miscue.
Running for Hauesler, Hogg raced home with what would proved to be the winning run when Russell closed out his big night at the plate with a double. He had earlier ripped a single and a three-run homer.
Fullington weathered a big scare in the last of the seventh when its opponent got a runner to third base with two outs before Brandon Bailey, the last of of four hurlers used by the Trojans, struck out the game’s final batter.
“I thought we played pretty well overall,” Brady said. “We hit the ball well and our pitching (David Faircloth, Beavers and Hauesler joined Bailey in logging mound time) was good again.
“It was also nice to see us collect several timely hits and not leave a lot of runners stranded when they got on base. Equally pleasing was the way we shut the door on them there at the end when they had the tying run just 90 feet away.
“On the other hand, we did make a couple of errors that hurt as they cost us four runs and too many of our batters struck out in the early going. We need to correct those kind of things and I think we will in time. Right now, it’s still very early in the season.”
