The East Marion Eagles (3-4, 0-3) began the season winning their first three games with a 39-9 run differential but have since suffered a four-game skid in which they have been outscored 55-9.
Last week was the pinnacle, or more accurately the trench, of the slide as they lost to Resurrection Catholic 17-2 in Pascagoula March 20 then again March 22 at home, 20-4.
In the first matchup Resurrection hung 10 runs on the board in the first inning off starting pitcher Vashon Sims and never looked back, limiting East Marion to just three hits. Sims accounted for two of the three hits, which included an RBI double, while Devin Daniels tripled and Lawrence Lambert drove in a run on a bases-loaded walk.
The second game was a similar story as Resurrection tagged starting pitcher JaQuarius Jones, who lasted just 2/3 of an inning, for nine runs in the first and tacked on 11 more runs off Daniels. The Eagles offense showed some improvement, ripping seven hits, and was led by Robert Rayford’s two singles. Lambert and Daniels both roped RBI doubles, and Joseph Lefebvre (RBI), Demitrius Allen, Elijah Brown and Jones each had a single.
While getting a few hits was encouraging, the Eagles still struggled with their two-strike approach and their defense did the pitching staff no favors.
“We just have to make the plays that are hit to us. We had a lot of senseless errors. I’m not going to take anything away from (Resurrection); they are a good ball club and swing the bat well, but we didn’t swing our bats at all,” head coach Mandell Echols said. “We had about six strikeouts just standing there looking with two strikes. You can’t win if you don’t give yourself a chance to put the ball in play. We didn’t even compete.”
East Marion had spent nearly a full week in practices and scrimmages trying to improve their approach in two-strike counts, but the message can be hard to absorb with so many young players.
“I have a bunch of young kids. Some of them are just intimidated by the older guys,” Echols said. “Then I have some baseball young kids — they’re older kids but are just coming back to baseball for the first time since little league.”
Since the losses to Resurrection the Eagles have continued to work on their problem areas.
“We’ve been working on being aggressive at the plate, and on defense we’ve been timid and waiting on the next guy to make the play. We’ve been more aggressive on defense (in practice),” Echols said.
The Eagles played Salem on the road in a doubleheader Tuesday night, but results were unavailable at press time. Before the doubleheader Tuesday Echols was hoping to at least split with Salem.
“We split last year, and hopefully we’ll do a lot better. Salem has been swinging their bats and the pitching has been pretty solid. I watched them play Lumberton the other night, and they did well against them,” he said. “If we could just split with them, that would give them that confidence to know they could compete with anyone in the district. The top three teams — Resurrection, Lumberton and Sacred Heart — there’s not much difference in the play from what I’ve seen (compared to) Salem. It would give them the confidence we could beat anybody.”
East Marion will take on Sacred Heart in two games next week, hosting the Crusaders Tuesday and heading to Hattiesburg Friday. Both games are scheduled to start at 7 p.m.
Pictured Above: East Marion's Elijah Brown fires the ball from third base to first. | Photo by Joshua Campbell
