Eagles hit cold streak
Published 6:00 pm Tuesday, March 17, 2009
After a hot 5-1 start to the season, the Fort Dale softball team has hit a cold streak, dropping several games in a weekend tournament.
Before wading into some region games and the tournament, the Eagles won convincingly 16-3 over Taylor Road last Tuesday.
Abbey Martin was one of the offensive leaders for the Eagles with four RBIs, and Murphy Middleton wasn’t far behind with three RBIs.
In a doubleheader against Glenwood, Fort Dale’s bats went cold as they were shut out 7-0 and 9-0.
The Eagles only managed to get four hits in the first game and three in the second.
“Glenwood has a really good team,” said head coach Scarlett Anderson. “Pitching, batting, fielding — they’re good all around.”
“We just lost our focus,” she added. “We were hoping to get a split for those region games, but I think we went in with the thought that we would lose.”
The loss dropped FDA to 1-3 in the region going into the weekend tournament.
Due to the threat of rain on Saturday, the games scheduled for that day were bumped up to Friday night.
In the first game of the tournament, Fort Dale lost a heartbreaker 4-3 to Patrician Academy.
The game was tied 2-2 at the end of the regulation, but Patrician scored two runs in the eighth inning, while the Eagles were only able to put up one run.
Lori Fail and Middleton had RBIs for the Eagles, while Katie Wilson came through with nine strikeouts from the mound.
“We played well against Patrician,” Anderson said. “It’s definitely a disappointing loss because I wanted to win that game. We as coaches made some mistakes, but the girls played well.”
Fort Dale rebounded strongly with a 6-1 beating of Prattville Christian in the next game.
Tosh Taylor led FDA with two RBIs, while Martin and Fail also contributed.
In the final game of the night, fatigue might have gotten the best of the Eagles as Wilcox defeated them 11-1.
Martin had the Eagles’ only RBI as well as the only hit.
“Wilcox had a good pitcher and we just couldn’t score against them,” Anderson said. “We could have done better, but the combination of being tired, the game being late and them having a fresh pitcher just caught up to us.”
Monday’s region game against Hooper was postponed because of rain.
The Eagles will play in a tournament at Macon-East this weekend, and the first game of the tournament will be a region game.
“We’ve got a lot of little things to improve on before playing Macon-East Friday,” Anderson said.