The Christ Presbyterian Academy Lions did not feel good after sustaining back-to-back losses in their baseball district tournament to Middle Tennessee Christian and Columbia Academy.
Their seniors called a post-practice team meeting after practice the next day, and they talked things over. They proceeded to beat Goodpasture 3-0, earning a trip to Clarksville on Saturday, May 8 with a bid to the DII-A Middle Region championship on the line.
Not only did the Lions win the game, they dominated with a 10-1 triumph.
Things appeared to be on the Cougars’ side early, though. Starting pitcher Collin Rittenberry set the Lions down in order to start the game with two strikeouts and a meek pop-up to the mound. CA leadoff hitter Paris Pridgen followed it up in the bottom half with a single through the left side.
That’s where their advantage ended. Pridgen was quickly thrown out stealing, and CPA came out swinging in the second inning.
They hit the ball hard — even the outs were loud — but it only amounted to a 3-0 lead through five innings. The Cougars felt fortunate to be that close; they had just three hits with two of them being eradicated on the basepaths, and the defense was not playing well. They had committed four errors (and finished with five) along with a handful of defensive woes that didn’t show up as mistakes but surely could have, like several instances of not getting to first base to cover on a bunt single.
Finally, the inevitable happened: the Lions pulled away. Four singles, a triple, an error and a hit-by-pitch added up to a six-run sixth inning, giving the visitors a 9-0 lead.
CPA’s energy flowed out of the dugout from the first pitch to the last, and that was by design.
“I think the mood was (up) the whole game,” said CPA head coach Larry Nesbitt. “The past couple games, we’ve had a ton of energy. We’ve had a ton of trust in each other. I think that it was just a matter of time before our pressure was going to catch up to the game.
“The biggest thing is we want to be positive. I feel like if we’re positive, we will catch some breaks when we’re positive. It just gives a positive life force to your team when everyone’s staying positive like that.”
The opposite was true of the Cougars, who will now have to face MTCS in a do-or-die rematch to keep their season alive.
“You could see that they were down,” said CA head coach Dustin Smith. “It’s tough to come back off of that. It’s a big game. We come out, we get a leadoff hit, we get thrown out stealing there and it’s a bit deflating there because we’re high and excited.”
The lack of offense was nothing new for them this season, but they’ve also proven capable of scoring in bunches. The difference is that, when their offense has struggled, their pitching and defense were usually there to pick them up. That wasn’t the case on Saturday.
Should the Cougars beat MTCS on Monday, May 10, they’ll face an immediate turnaround to play a familiar foe: the Lions.
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