There’s multi-dimensional and there’s multi-positional. Bryan County’s baseball team showed last Saturday it’s the latter as Coach Kevin Farmer made a pitching change which resulted in six position changes in a 10-6 win over Islands.
The win over the visiting Sharks capped a week in which the Redskins (3-3) went 2-1 heading into Tuesday’s Region 3A-DII opener with Jenkins County. It will be the start of another busy week for Bryan County which will play at Liberty County on Thursday and then visit the War Eagles on Friday before hosting ECI on Tuesday.
The Redskins kicked off the week with a 7-6 win at Bulloch Academy before dropping a 16-1 decision to Seabreeze, Fl., on Friday night. The Daytona Beach school beat Islands, 6-0, Saturday morning.
“They’ve got a good program,” Farmer said of Seabreeze. “Playing them is building relationships. We’re going to down to Florida next year”
With the “exhibition” season behind them the Redskins now turn their full attention to region play and Farmer believes the six non-region games have been beneficial.
“I think we’ve seen some good pitching,” Farmer said. “We’ve seen some things that are going to help us. We’ve got to get tougher, though, because we’re in a tough region.”
The short-handed Redskins—they currently have an 11-man roster—had a productive day against the Sharks. They scored two runs in each the fifth and sixth innings to pick up the win.
Eli Koskela got the win in relief of starter Harrison Adams who turned in a solid performance and deserved a better fate. Koskela had a good day as he had run scoring doubles in the first and second innings and then got out of a bases-loaded jam in the seventh by inducing the Sharks’ Harrison Roelle to hit into a game-ending double play.
Roelle hit a sharp ball back to Koskela who fired to catcher Ethan Williams for the force at home and Williams in turn threw a strike to Gunner McClelland at first to end the game.
“I’ve been hitting pretty decent,” said Koskela who has also started at catcher. “We have to move people around and I’ll play anywhere coach needs me.
“I think we’re in pretty good shape going into region play,” Koskela said. “We still need to work on the little things…minimize errors, do a better job of holding runners on the bags.
“It’s just the little things that’s killing us right now. We’re in a really tough region. The teams are like us: they’re gritty. We’ve got to take care of business against Jenkins on Tuesday.”
Koskela’s move to the mound started the game of musical chairs: Koskela went from right field to pitching, Gunner Ennis from third base to shortstop, Braylin Deloach from shortstop to second base, Jordan Fabian went from left field to third, Adams went to left and Keller Groover from second to rightfield.
Adams, a side-arming righthander, left after four innings holding a 6-5 lead. However, the Sharks got to Koskela for a run in the fifth to tie the game but the Redskins regained the lead for good in their half of the inning, scoring twice with two out on run-producing singles by Williams and Deloach.
Bryan County put it out of reach in the sixth as Fabin doubled in a run and came around to score on a passed ball.
“Harrison continues to do a great job for us,” Farmer said of the senior. “He comes in, he’s spunky, he throws strikes. He’s a ground ball pitcher so we have to be on our toes and play good defense behind him.”
The Redskins led 4-2 after three only to see the Sharks score three times in the fourth as Adams, who appeared to be tiring, allowed three hits while hitting a batter and walking one. He left two batters on base.
Bryan County answered with two runs in the bottom of the inning thanks to some shaky Islands fielding which saw one run score on a passed ball and another on an error. That shut the door on the Sharks.
“That’s what we’re going to have to do this year with the numbers we have,” Farmer said of shifts. “When we make a move, we have to make multiple moves. We’re trying to find where we’re consistent at, what we’re good at and we’re continuing to do that.”