MOULTRIE – The Colquitt County baseball team, bedeviled by mental errors, dropped its 2025 season-opener on Monday, falling to Ware County 10-4 at Packer Park.
The Packers led 4-1 after three innings, but were outscored 9-0 the rest of the way.
The game was the first under new head coach Ryan Strickland, who came over from Thomas County Central after the Packers went 11-17 last year.
It was expected to be a difficult opener for the Packers with the Gators having gone 25-13 and reaching the Class 4A Final Four last year and having a number of talented players returning.
Ware also was in the Final Four in 2023.
“We’re not going to see many teams much better than that,” Strickland said of the Gators. “They’ve got good hitters and good pitching.”
Ware reached five Colquitt County pitchers for 12 hits and scored at least two runs in each of the last four innings.
Although the Packers were charged with four errors that led to four unearned runs, Strickland said it was mental errors that hurt his team the most in its first appearance in front of the home fans.
“Everything tonight was mental,” Strickland said. “Mental mistakes. Those are what we have to learn from.
“We’ve got to learn to reset and work through those things.”
After Ware scored a run off Packers starter Bowen DeRosso in the top of the first, Colquitt got three in the bottom of the inning.
An Adam Beverly sacrifice bunt drove in the first run and a Jaxon Chambers single plated the other two.
Beverly’s RBI single in the second put the Packers up 3-1.
Although they did not score the rest of the way, the Packers hit in some bad luck, twice hitting into double plays on hard-hit balls.
Beverly and Hayden Hembree each had two hits for the Packers. One of Hembree’s was a double.
Chambers, Brady DeRosso and Bryce Roberts had the others.
Sophomore Bowen DeRosso went the first three innings on the mound for the Packers.
He was followed by Gabe Eubanks, who worked one inning; Cole Holder, who pitched 1.1 innings; Owen Bennett, who threw .2 innings; and Ethan Allegood, who pitched the seventh.
Packers right-fielder Cook Tompkins threw out two Ware County base runners who tested his throwing arm.
“I thought we swung the bat well and wse never quit,” Strickland said. “Even at the end, we were competing at the plate.”
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.
And again the Packers will meet teams that won 20-plus games last season.
Wayne County was 28-8 last season. Jeff Davis was 23-9. Both reached the state quarterfinals.