Manchester Academy’s baseball team split a pair of rivalry games against Benton Academy and Tri-County Academy to move to 2-1 in the conference.
The Raiders came to Manchester on Friday for a rematch against the rival Mavericks.
Manchester won the first game between the teams 15-0.
On Monday, it was a far closer event.
Manchester Academy head coach Kyle Wever believed the pitching was the difference in his team for the two different type of games.
“We threw Chris Guthrie in the first game, and Blake Coghlan came in after,” Wever said. “They both did a great job. In the second game, we had 12 walks and a hit batter. Pitching is crucial in these key games, and we couldn’t find the strike zone.”
Early on, however, it seemed that the Mavericks would run away with it.
They put up three in the second inning to take a 3-0 lead.
By the fifth inning, Manchester was up 6-0.
That’s when Benton struck back with seven runs to take a 7-6 lead.
An error allowed Manchester to tie things up at 7-7 in the bottom of the inning.
A pair of sac flies allowed Manchester to regain a 9-7 lead, a score that would eventually become the final, giving Manchester the season sweep of Benton.
On Saturday, the Mavericks faced off with Starkville Academy.
The result was a 16-1 win by Starkville Academy.
According to Wever, the game was always going to be a difficult one due to the scheduling.
“We scheduled the game knowing we would likely be short on pitching,” Wever said. “It was at the end of a long week. We had a relapse from the second Benton game as far as our pitching went.”
Luckily for Manchester, the Starkville Academy game was non-conference.
The game against Tri-County on Monday, however, was not.
To Wever, the Tri-County games are key pieces in the chess board of the season.
“It’s a big series for the season,” Wever said. “It will determine a lot. It should decide where we go in the near future. I’m not going to say it’s the end-all and be-all or anything because you can lose most conference games if you come out and have a bad game, but it’s a big one.”
The Rebels got off to a hot start, scoring two runs in the second and two in the fourth to give them a 4-0 lead.
Manchester finally got on the board with a pair of runs in the fifth inning to cut the lead to 4-2.
In the top of the seventh, Tri-County pulled away with five runs to make it 9-2.
The Mavericks were able to score a run in the bottom of the seventh, but it wasn’t enough.
They fell 9-3 to give them an 8-3 (2-1 in conference) record.
The Mavericks will return to action on Tuesday when they host St. Joe for a conference game.
The first pitch is set for 6 p.m.
