The Palestine Herald
May 15, 2008 12:52 pm
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By SALLY SEXTON
H-P Sports Writer
GRAPELAND — There’s a first time for everything, and tonight’s first game of the best-of-three Class A-Region III quarterfinal series against Cross Roads might be the first time the Grapeland Sandies have come into a game as the underdog.
“Cross Roads is ranked in front of us and I think they’ve only have three losses all season,” Grapeland head coach Wes Padgett said. “It will probably be close and I think it’s pretty much going to be a dogfight.”
The start of the series has been pushed back to Friday as the teams will play a doubleheader starting at 4:30 p.m. If needed, the third game will be played at 2 p.m. Saturday.
The Sandies are coming off of a series win over Cushing in three games.
Grapeland won the first game 7-3 and 10-run ruled the Bearkats on Saturday for the series.
In the second game, the Sandies got down by as many as 10 runs before battling back to fall 14-11.
“I think that was a big shot in the arm for us to know that we can be down by 10 runs and still come back,” Padgett said. “The kids are pretty cocky and that’s good because sometimes you need that, but it’s a very thin line.”
Grapeland hopes to improves things on the opposite end, mainly by cutting down on strikeouts and putting the ball into play.
“If we put the ball in play we can cut down on the strikeouts because those are easy outs that we’re just giving away,” Padgett said. “When we’ve got two strikes on us, we’re going to need to choke up and shorten our swing.”
The Sandies consider themselves more of a power hitting team, which Padgett said can sometimes lead to overeagerness at the plate.
“One of our biggest weaknesses is that we tend to swing at every pitch,” the Grapeland coach said. “The thing that concerns me is that Cross Roads has a lot of left-handed pitchers and that’s something we aren’t used to seeing.”
On the other end, the Sandie defense has been solid behind freshman catcher Austin Cheatham and the pitching trio of Jared Murray, Tony Taylor and Ruston Boyd.
“I’ve been real pleased with the way Austin has been playing,” Padgett said. “He’s had some moments but I think he’s got 10 assists so far, which is pretty decent.”
The likely starter for tonight will be Murray, who pitched the first game of the previous series and recorded 10 strikeouts in Grapeland’s 7-3 win.
“I think Jared will do what he normally does and he’ll have a good game as long as we field for him,” Padgett said. “We’re going to have to minimize the walks and play good defense.”
While Grapeland knows it faces a fairly large challenge, the Sandies are hoping to use the results of this game to build confidence and keep the ball rolling.
“I like our chances if we can get hot in the series and take that momentum even further,” Padgett said. “It’s going to be a big test for us this week and I hope we come out ready to play.”
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Sally Sexton can be reached via e-mail at sports2@palestineherald.com
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