The Greyhounds began this season showing a penchant for being able to battle back after falling behind. Last Thursday against Eagles Landing, that tenacity enabled Jones County to pull itself off the mat for its first region win of the season.
JCHS rallied from a five-run deficit through two innings to come back and win 6-5. The victory came amidst weather challenges last week. Thursday’s game was delayed two days, and a scheduled Friday doubleheader at Eagles Landing was also called off due to weather.
“Trying to get mentally checked in, that can be a difficult task (in times last like week),” Greyhounds head coach Mike Paulk said. “It took a minute for us to get going, but once we got rolling, we capitalized.”
The Greyhounds completed a sweep of Eagles Landing on Monday to even their region record at 3-3, winning 13-2 and 25-2.
On a night in which Kaylob Harris was touched up early on, two other pitchers would come along to settle things in. Cayden Tidwell, who would later be relieved by Landon Pettigrew, took the mound and posted very similar results. Each gave up a hit and struck out four Eagles Landing batters over a span of three innings.
“He’s been working hard. We have not been able to get him a lot of starts. He’s been working through a bit of shoulder tenderness,” Paulk said of Harris. “I had a feeling within our team that we’d be able to score some runs, so I gave him a bit of a longer leash, thinking that our bats would come in and save the day and erase those runs, and they did.”
Silenced for the game’s first two innings, the Greyhounds bats reacted almost as if on cue. A four-run third inning got Jones County within a run, down 5-4 before single runs in the fourth and sixth put Jones County in front prior to the Greyhounds coming away with a one-run victory which improved them to 4-6 overall entering this week.
The Greyhounds actually had a chance to rally in the first, down 3-0 after Brayden Lampkin drew a walk prior to being stranded at third. That ended up foreshadowing what would occur in the later innings. A bunt by Lampkin put runners at the corners, moving Dalton Lowe, who reached on a walk, to third. After a Colin Evans walk to load the bases, Davis Upshaw cashed in with a two-run single. Upshaw overall had two hits on Thursday and three RBIs.
Jones County’s third inning was not finished. RBI singles by Marlin Mills and Cohen Barfield scored Evans and Mills, with Mills speeding around third to score from second to put JCHS down 5-4 in the third. Unlike in previous losses this season, a rally as the game went on ended up being enough to come back and get a win.
“That’s what we’ve talked about, being resilient and not waiting until the end to get things started,” Paulk said.
Upshaw tied it an inning later when he scored none other than Lampkin, who on Thursday moved to the leadoff spot as a result of an injury to Jonathan Scarbary.
“I’m impressed with Lampkin, with how he has improved from last year to this year. It comes down to the mentality that we’ll get on base no matter what,” Paulk said. “We moved him from the No.9 spot to the leadoff to see how he’d do in that spot, and he handled that well.”
With the game hanging in the balance in the later innings, the Greyhounds kept the pressure on, getting enough offense to move into the lead on an Evans double to drive in Lampkin for the game-winning run. “Hats off to Eagles Landing; they are much-improved,” Paulk said. “We dug deep and found a way to put the ball on the ground; our defense made plays and we capitalized.”
