With 30 games on the schedule Bryan County baseball Coach Kyle Farmer is far from discouraged by what he has seen out of his team after its first three games.

After beating Jenkins, 14-4, in their opener the Redskins dropped a pair of games to Commerce last Saturday at Redskins Field. The Redskins dropped the first game, 7-0, and then lost a heartbreaker in the second game when the Tigers pushed across a run in the seventh inning to grab a 3-2 win.

The win made it three in a row for Commerce (3-1) which entered the twin bill on the heels of a 15-0 win at Jenkins County the day before. Bryan County (1-2) will open Region 3A-DII play against Jenkins County at home next Tuesday and then visit the War Eagles three days later.

Bryan County will be at Bulloch Academy on Tuesday and has back-to-back home games against Seabreeze of Daytona Beach, Fl., on Thursday and Islands on Friday. The game with Islands has a 1 p.m. start time. 

Eli Koskela started the opener for the Redskins and went three scoreless innings before departing with five strikeouts while giving up one hit and two walks. It was a start similar to the one Gunner Ennis had against Jenkins in which he opened with three hitless innings.

“We’ve got them on a pitch count,” Farmer said. “Braylin Deloach started the second game and he did great. Keller Groover came in and did a great job, too.

“We’ve got to find some guys to bridge the gap,” Farmer said. “We’re keeping an eye on our guys…we’re not just running them out there.

“I’ve got all the faith in the world in our pitchers. I’m excited about our arms. We want them to go three or four innings but right now they’re getting themselves into bad counts. They’re throwing too many pitches.”

In the opener Commerce got all the runs it needed when it scored twice in the top of the fourth against sophomore Walker Summerford without the benefit of a hit as the Redskins had a pair of errors.

Summerford is doing double duty this spring as he is also a distance runner in track. He did not play baseball last year but with Farmer having only 13 players on the roster with two of those still playing basketball he was a welcome addition.

“I thought it was an opportunity to get him in a game in a low-pressure situation,” Farmer said. “He came in and did a great job but we’ve got to do a better job playing behind our pitchers.

“We’ve just got to focus more on ourselves, get better and play clean baseball. If we can do that we’ll be in a lot of games.”

After nicking Summerford for a pair of runs the Tigers came back with three in the fifth which essentially put the game out of reach and then tacked on two for good measure in the seventh.

Lefthanded starter Michael Purvis gave up only two hits over 4.1 innings and the Redskins had three on the day:  Ethan Williams had an infield single in the first, Ashton Martin singled in the fifth and Jordan Fabian singled leading off the seventh. The Redskins left four runners stranded.

The second game was tight all the way with Koskela doubling in one run and Groover had an RBI on a fielder’s choice.

“I felt we didn’t show up ready to play in the first game,” Farmer said. “We didn’t have energy. We made too many mental mistakes and when a team gets a lead it takes us out of our game.

“We’re going to be fine. This is a hard game. We’ve just got to figure out what we do well and what we need to do to get better.”