by Rusty Ellis
The Upperman Bees took an early lead against Mt. Juliet on Saturday, but faltered in the middle innings and lost a tough 8-6 decision to the Golden Bears.
Starter Braden Williams appeared to have his stuff working early, as he tossed two scoreless innings with three strikeouts to keep the Golden Bears off the board early.
This gave the offense a chance to get on the board first, and they took advantage of that with a four-run second inning. Williams helped himself with an RBI double to start the scoring, followed by an error that allowed two more runs to score.
Eli Huddleston added an RBI double of his own to cap off the rally and give the Bees a 4-0 lead.
Williams gave up the first Mt. Juliet run of the game in the third inning, and then got into more trouble in the fourth, however.
After the Golden Bears trimmed the lead down to just 4-3, a two-out, three-run home run gave Mt. Juliet a 6-4 lead, completely flipping the momentum in favor of the visitors.
Upperman answered back with a run in the bottom of the fourth, but another home run scored two more runs for the Golden Bears and pushed the lead to 8-5 in the fifth.
The Bees didn’t score again until Huddleston’s solo home run in the bottom of the seventh, and Upperman put a pair of runners on with two outs, but a Julian Llano strikeout ended the game in a tough 8-6 loss for the Upperman Bees.
The loss is disappointing for head coach Wes Shanks, but he was proud of how his team battled and clawed their way back into the game after falling behind.
“We knew going into this game, that it would be highly competitive,” Shanks said. “They’re a good ball-club with a lot of talent…today we had a lot of outside factors like the wind and everyone felt that. We got out to a lead, and we just couldn’t expand on it. We put the ball in play and forced them to make plays. Overall we competed, we just have to compete a little bit harder.”
Upperman appeared poised for a big day at the plate with their four-run second inning, but struggled to put together any rallies beyond that. As far as what was different, Shanks says it just came down to Mt. Juliet making some tough plays in the field.
“After the storm last night, (the infield dirt) was hard as a rock,” Shanks said. “You put the ball in play, and those plays become really tough. We’ve got to take advantage of our opportunities, we had some momentum and we didn’t take advantage of it. Against a good 4A team, you can’t just settle for four runs. You’ve got to add on.”
Upperman will turn its focus back to district play on Monday, as they welcome Cumberland County to Baxter.
