MOULTRIE – The turnout for the Colquitt County baseball team’s inaugural First Pitch and Silent Auction Dinner last Monday was surprisingly large.
So was the number of fans who showed up at Thursday’s scrimmage against Worth County on Ike Aultman Field at Jerry Croft Stadium.
And those who attended should have been pleased with the Packers performance in a 9-2 win over the Rams, who were 24-10 last season.
New head coach Ryan Strickland was.
“I was very pleased,” said Strickland, named last spring as the Packers head coach. “What I told them I wanted was for them to come out with energy and compete and they did that.
“Overall, it was a successful scrimmage and scrimmages are tough. It’s tough to get in a rhythm.”
The Packers had seven hits, did not commit an error and seven pitchers combined to allow just two runs on three hits while striking out 13 Rams.
Strickland was especially pleased with his team’s performance in the field.
“It was a clean game defensively,” he said. “We made all the routine plays and a couple of tough ones.”
Although Worth scored one of its runs on a balk and the other on a wild pitch, “I thought our pitchers’ approach was pretty good.”
Senior left-hander Gabe Eubanks started and struck out one and walked one, but got out of the inning when he picked a runner off first base.
Ethan Allegood, another senior, pitched the second inning and walked a batter, but a couple of ground balls got him through it unscathed.
Senior Cole Holder struck out three batters in the third, while working around a base on balls.
Cook Tompkins, the fourth straight senior to take the mound, gave up a run and got the first two outs in the fourth inning before junior Owen Bennett was summoned.
Bennett got a strike out to end the inning.
He also fanned the first two batters he faced in the fifth before getting a fly ball to end his night’s work.
Sophomore starting second baseman Bryce Roberts took the mound in the sixth and gave up a hit and a run before striking out the final two batters.
Jackson Chambers, the senior starting third baseman, closed it out by striking out all three Worth County batters he faced in the bottom of the seventh.
Trailing 2-1, Colquitt broke the game open with a six-run sixth inning.
Four Packers were hit by pitches in the inning and three scored.
An Allegood single driving in his second run of the game gave the Packers their first lead and Jake Walker followed with a sacrifice fly to make it 3-1.
Tompkins added a two-run double and senior catcher Hayden Hembree chipped in a single in the inning.
Since it was a scrimmage, the Packers batted in the bottom of the seventh despite holding a 7-2 lead and added two more runs.
The regular season will open on Wednesday, February 12, when Ware County travels to Packer Park from Waycross.
First pitch will be 6 p.m.
The Region 1-4A Gators were 25-13 last season and reached the Class 4A Final Four.
“And they have a lot of returners back,” Strickland said. “They are very good.”
On Saturday, February 15, the Packers will travel to Hazlehurst where they will meet Wayne County at 1 p.m. and Jeff Davis at 3:30 p.m.
Wayne County was 28-8 last season. Jeff Davis was 23-9. Both reached the state quarterfinals.
“From here on out, our schedule is pretty tough,” Strickland said. “We just have to learn to play the same way no matter how tough our opponent is.”
The Colquitt County B and C teams will play host to Lowndes in a 4:30 p.m. doubleheader on Monday, February 10, at Packer Park.