DIAMOND HOUNDS
On one hand, an 0-2 start to the season can be viewed as a rough start. But for the Greyhounds, last week’s pair of games against Mary Persons gave them a chance to see how different parts of the roster fared.
Although Jones County lost 7-1 on Tuesday to the Bulldogs and 15-0 on Friday at home, a pair of innings from each game blew each result open. A four-run sixth inning on Tuesday helped Mary Persons put the game away while on Friday, a 14-run third inning accounted for all but one of the runs allowed by Jones County.
“We’re looking at different guys and trying to find those best nine. If you look at it as a whole, we’ve really only had two bad innings out of 12. The way I frame it is, we are not going to let two bad innings define who we are,” Greyhounds head coach Mike Paulk said. “At the same time, we did make some mistakes that we’re going to have to correct. There’s some places and positions we need to look for the best guy to do the job, and that’s what we’re going to do, continue to look for those best guys as we get into region.”
The starting lineup also differed greatly each day due in part to seeing the same opponent as a few days prior.
That, Paulk said, was by design for the Greyhounds, who hosted Howard on Wednesday before playing Perry on Thursday. Jones County begins region play Feb. 27 at Union Grove with the Wolverines coming to Gray for a doubleheader on March 1.
“With it being against the same team, it kind of dictated to me that we needed to do that now, so we can kind of compare apples to apples,” Paulk said. “It gave me a very non-biased look at how guys could perform in different situations.”
The Greyhounds got a good start on Tuesday against the Bulldogs with Kaylob Harris driving in Colin Evans. Harris, Cohen Barfield, Holloway and Evans each had hits against Mary Persons, which rallied for two runs in the second inning and one in the third before their four late runs. Three pitchers saw time on the mound for JCHS with Davis Upshaw giving up a hit and four runs in four innings, Taylor surrendering three runs on five hits in three innings with Landon Pettigrew giving up a run in two innings.
Evans had the lone hit for the Greyhounds in Friday’s loss that also saw three pitchers take the hill. In addition to Dalton Lowe’s two innings of work, Jonathan Scarbary and Carter Harris combined to pitch three innings and give up a combined six runs and three hits with Scarbary yielding a run, a hit and striking out five.
“The score notwithstanding, we had some very bright spots on Friday. We had some guys who had not started in varsity before, and they got up there and threw it well and hit some spots,” Paulk said. “I was very pleased with our new guys on the mound. I think they’ll provide us with some firepower in the future.”
