Eagles To Host Banks County Thursday
East Jackson Just Misses Second Win
By Brandon Reed
The East Jackson Eagles are continuing to feel growing pains in their first-ever season. The latest came in the form of the Rabun County Wildcats, who defeated the Eagles 8-6 last week.
The Eagles hope to see a turn in the their fortunes when they host the Banks County Leopards on Thursday. First pitch is scheduled for 5:30 p.m.
Rabun County
It was a seesaw battle. A costly throwing error by the Eagles and a bases-clearing double by the Wildcats proved the difference, as the Wildcats handed East Jackson their sixth defeat of the season.
Nick Keyros recorded the loss. He pitched four innings, giving up two runs, including a solo home run. Keyros walked three, and struck out two. At the plate, Keyros knocked in two runs, as did senior Taylor Boswell.
“We haven’t gotten over the hump of finishing,” said coach David Robertson. “We can jump out in front of people, and we can play with anybody. But then we give up that big inning, or we make an error, and it’s hard for us to rebound right now. So, we’re talking to the kids a lot about not letting the last play affect the next one. We’re leaving too many runners on base. We left 22 runners on base Wednesday night.”
Along with the 22 runners left stranded, the Eagles walked nine total batters, and had six errors against the Wildcats, who came into Wednesday’s game off of a loss to Union County.
Showing Potential
Robertson says to have only lost by two in that game shows the kind of team he has.
“If we can get that many people on base, and give them 15 free passes with six errors and nine walks and still only lose by two, we have a good ball team,” he said. “We just haven’t figured out that winning feels a lot better than losing.”
Robertson says the key lies in the players making their minds up to break the past trends and make something happen.
“We’ve got to start having some leadership,” he said. “We really don’t have any on-field leaders. We have some guys that will talk, and do that cheerleading stuff, but we need somebody that’s going to be a leader with the glove, or their arm or their bat, and not necessarily with their mouth.”
Robertson points to the slow start by East Jackson’s basketball team last year as an example of what a team can do once they build up momentum.
“I think once these kids get a little bit of winning under their belts, it will snowball. I really and truly do. We’ve got that kind of quality kids. It’s going to take time. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.”
Dawson Rainout
Rain postponed the Eagles’ Friday match-up with Dawson County. Robertson said he had not yet been contacted with a make-up date for the game.
East Jackson was next scheduled to travel to Union County on Tuesday. Results of that game were not available at press time.
