Fort Dale’s baseball season came to an end with a 14-0 loss against Pike Liberal Arts last Friday.

The Eagles struggled from the plate, only drawing one walk and failing to get a hit.

“We just weren’t there,” said head coach Josh Beverly. “They’re the better team. We just didn’t play, and once you’re out of the playoffs, it’s hard to get going.”

After facing Hooper in a double-header earlier in the week, the Eagles were also dealing with some shallowness in the pitching rotation.

“Overall, we didn’t play well,” Beverly said. “They hit well and our pitching struggled. When we did put it in play, they played good defense.”

The Eagles had games against Sparta and Morgan on the schedule for this week, but those teams had seeding games, so the contests with FDA were cancelled.

“We were going to try to have a senior day, but I guess that won’t happen,” Beverly said. “Our season is over.”

The Eagles are losing a number of seniors: Kendall Gibson, Hunter Smith, Paul Whigham, Jeffrey Stead, Brantley McKeown, Steven Lee and Aaron Callen.

“I’ve coached them since ninth grade and they’ve been with me for four years,” Beverly said. “We’ve had a pretty good year. We had some bad luck at the end and didn’t get to send them out on the right note, but that’s part of it sometimes.”

“We’re going to be missing some pitching and some good leaders,” he added.

Despite the loss of a strong senior class, the Eagles have some players ready to step into the spotlight next season.

“We’ll be bringing back nine for sure, and we’ll go from there,” Beverly said.