Packers defeat Deerfield Beach 12-1

Published 10:51 pm Thursday, April 13, 2006

MOULTRIE — Just what the doctor ordered.

With a pivotal Region 1-AAAAA game tonight at home against Coffee High, the Colquitt County baseball tuned up with a 12-1, five-inning victory over Deerfield Beach High of Broward County, Fla., at Ike Aultman Field.

Just two days after being mercy-ruled themselves in a 10-0 loss at Lowndes, the Packers banged out 11 hits and erupted for an eight-run second inning.

Colquitt would like nothing better than a repeat performance tonight when the Trojans visit.

Coffee is 0-4 in the region and the Packers can all but bury the Trojans with a victory.

Even more important for the Packers is the opportunity to put some distance between themselves and Tift County.

Like the Packers, the Blue Devils will take a 1-3 region record into their game tonight.

But Tift must face region-leading Lowndes, which is 4-0 after blanking the Packers on Tuesday.

A Colquitt win and a Tift County loss would leave the Packers at 2-3 and the Blue Devils 1-4.

Colquitt and Tift meet at Ike Aultman Field a week from tonight in the next region game for both teams.

“That will be a big game for us,” Packers coach Jerry Croft said of the meeting with Coffee tonight. “There are still a lot of ‘if’s.’

“But if we can take care of business, we can be in third place by ourselves.”

After enduring four losses and a tie in the five games since beating Tift County 15-14 on March 31, Croft was elated with the win over the visiting Bucks.

“That was a good win for us,” he said. “Maybe we got a little momentum going.”

Sophomore Andrew McDowell went all five innings and gave up just the one run and two hits. He got his second win of the season and struck out two, but was wilder than Croft would have liked, walking five.

“When you get a big lead like that, you just need to throw strikes,” Croft said. “But he’s coming on. He’s maturing.”

McDowell had plenty of offensive support.

Colquitt went three-up, three-down in the first inning, but got six hits and took advantage of two walks and three errors in the second while sending 13 batters to the plate.

Chance Pitts and Tyler Perryman opened the inning with base hits. An error loaded the bases and Sam Heath walked to force in the first run.

Drew Shealy singled in the second run and Cory Bridwell singled to drive in two more. One out later, Carter Jones doubled to right to score two more runs, but was thrown out at third trying to stretch the hit into a triple.

A walk sandwiched around two infield errors loaded the bases again and Matt Weaver followed with a base hit to right to drive in the final two runs of the inning.

Colquitt tacked on four more runs in the third, batting around for the second inning in a row.

Shealy walked to open the inning and Jarvis Lambright went in to pinch run for him.

Lambright stole second and Andrew Wallace was hit by a pitch. Jones followed with a single to drive Lambright for his third RBI of the game.

Scotty DeMott then doubled to left, driving in Wallace. Pitts followed with a single to right to drive in the Packers final two runs of the game.

Jones and Pitts each had two hits. DeMott, Weaver, Shealy, Spencer Richardson and Marcus Stancil had the others.

By going 2-for-2, Pitts raised his batting average to .365. Jones went 2-for-3 and will take a .377 batting average into the game against Coffee.

The victory raises the Packers record to 6-12-1.

Deerfield Beach was playing at Ike Aultman Field for the second straight year.

In 2005, Colquitt County played host to the Bucks in a rare Saturday night game and the Packers won 5-1.

The victory was the eighth in row to open the season for the Packers last year. Colquitt went 7-10 the rest of the way, although the Packers qualified for the state playoffs before being eliminated in the first round.

The Bucks were defeated by Valdosta on Wednesday night.

“We enjoy playing Deerfield Beach,” Croft said. “They are a class act.”

Deefield Beach’s only hits were a game-opening single by second baseman Julian Cabrera and an RBI-single by left fielder Chris Beck in the second inning.