Bryan County baseball coach Kyle Farmer said a fast start in Region 3A-DII play will be meaningless if his team doesn’t remain focused on the task at hand.
The Redskins (8-6, 4-2), looking to make the state playoffs for a fifth straight season, were feeling pretty good about themselves as they took a modest three-game win streak into a Tuesday night game at Portal (4-10, 3-4).
The Panthers, however, took the air out of that balloon when they held on for a 9-8 win. The two teams have a rematch on Friday at Redskins Field.
“We had a good week,” Farmer said of last week which saw his team take two region games from Claxton and get a mid-week non-region win at Savannah Country Day. “But I told the guys our focus is on the next pitch. There are no off days in the region.”
In beating the Tigers 19-2 and 4-1 sandwiched around an 11-5 win at Country Day, the Redskins took advantage of their opponent’s miscues while limiting their own. In scoring 34 runs they had 18 hits with three innings in which they batted around: a 10-run fourth inning at Claxton and two five-run innings against the Hornets.
While defense has been spotty in several games—Bryan County had five errors against SCD—in the sweep of Claxton it played errorless baseball while the Tigers had nine errors. The Redskins have now won eight straight games against Claxton.
Bryan County are at Bluffton, S.C., on Wednesday and before taking on the Panthers in what is now a most crucial contest. The Redskins play at Jenkins County on Monday and returning home to take on McIntosh County Academy on Tuesday
The Redskins will be favored against MCA which started the week mired in a 13-game losing streak. That was extended to 14 in a 15-0 loss to ECI. Earlier Bryan County broke a tight game open with five runs in the sixth inning to beat Jenkins County, 8-2.
Farmer said his team is far from being good enough to take anyone for granted which is why he put it through a stringent workout on Monday despite the inclement weather.
“Last week against Claxton we went from winning big (19-2) to a nail-biter,” Farmer said. “We’re not good enough to throw our hats out there.
“We can’t be comfortable,” Farmer said. “As soon as you do, you’re going to get beat. That’s the culture we’re trying to change.
“We’re not going to be anyone’s door mat. We should go out not hoping to win, but expecting to win.”
Farmer is looking to avoid a repeat of last year’s finish when the Redskins got off to a 9-2 start in region play only to stumble down the stretch. Bryan County finished 10-6 good for fourth-place and a state playoff berth. The Redskins lost to state runner-up Wilcox County in the opening round.
Screven County 10-5, 7-0) started the week in first-place in the region and stayed there with a 6-0 win over Metter (7-5, 4-2) on Tuesday. Jenkins County (3-12, 1-5) beat Claxton (5-6, 2-5). 7-5, for its first region win.
“We can’t be looking at the standings,” Farmer said. “If we look past tomorrow, we’ll get beat by whoever we’re playing. We’ve got to win the games we know we should and be a team hard to sweep. When we play the upper-level teams, we’ve got to get a split which is why the ECI win was so big.”
Bryan County handed ECI its lone region loss when it rallied for four runs in the seventh to force extra innings in an 11-10 win. Bryan County will face Metter and Screven in its final two region series of the season.