A tough two games gave the North Sunflower Academy Rebel baseball team a chance to experience some growing pains.
Photo By Vikki Peay
A Thursday 16-1 road loss followed by a 16-5 home loss to the same Humphreys Academy Rebels put NSA below .500 on the season.
Head Coach Anthony Rivera now has a week off from game action before district play begins. He’ll take that time to work out the kinks. But this week is followed by spring break for the Rebels and Coach Rivera hopes there’s not too many beach plans for his players.
They’ll be hosting Lee Academy (Arkansas) on March 15 and will turn around and face the same team at their home field on March 17.
“Thursday, the game was over after the second inning. They started cracking the bat. On Friday, we were down 6-5 but my senior pitcher, Dalton Hollis got tired,” Coach Rivera said. “I had to go with one of my eighth graders. My sophomore and senior pitchers had to sit down because they had thrown too many pitches. That last pitching change, it became batting practice.”
Giving up 11 runs in the sixth inning, errors also put the Rebels in a hole.
“They had the bases loaded and we tried to gun somebody down at third and one bad throw, one error can determine the outcome of the game,” he said. “It was good for about six innings.”
He did find some positives in the two losses.
“Humphreys is a great team and they always have a great team. To see my guys compete with a solid ball club and see their experience kick in, it gives me high hopes coming into district play,” he said. “Hats off to their program. From the dugout to the outfield, they are a class act.”
With the break, Coach Rivera hopes to “get in as much work as we possibly can. They pushed our spring break back and we’ve got two games over spring break. Hopefully, I won’t be missing any guys. Coming into district games, everything is on the line now.”
