Brady Jones is looking for a few good baseball players.
No, the McComb baseball manager isn’t looking to add to his already young squad. He just wants someone, anyone, to take their game to the next level.
“It’s gotten to the point this year,” Jones said, “that a few guys have been asked to step up and they’re dragging a little bit.”
After opening the season with three wins in their first four games, the Tigers have hit hard times and fallen to 5-10.
The disheartened Tigers lost their ninth in their last 11 games Tuesday night in a 14-3 defeat at the hands of the Brookhaven Panthers in Region 5-5A action at Rotary Field.
McComb fell to 2-3 in region play after the Panthers unleashed a 16-hit attack capped by Scottie Peavey’s seventh-inning grand-slam home run.
Meanwhile, McComb was limited to eight hits. The Tigers also stranded seven runners on base.
“Brookhaven’s a great team,” Jones said. “Coach (Randy) Spring always has his team ready to play. Their hitting approach is always the same. That’s a dangerous team to face.”
The Panthers jumped on McComb starting pitcher Zach Rowell in the first inning, with Chris Seals’ RBI single driving in Gabe Wilson, who legged out an infield hit with one out.
Rowell escaped further damage in the inning when he picked off Seals at first, with McComb first baseman Landon Mabile applying the tag for the third out.
The Tigers answered with a run in the bottom of the first. Hunter Aultman singled to lead off and advanced to second when Trey Terrell’s bunt down the third-base line was mishandled for an error.
After the two runners moved to second and third on a wild pitch, Bradley Brock’s sacrifice fly to right plated Aultman with the tying run.
Brookhaven pitcher Brandon Foster, however, struck out the next two hitters to strand Terrell, who had moved to third on another wild pitch.
Foster helped his own cause with a run-scoring double to deep left field that brought home Brice Huckaby for a 2-1 lead. Huckaby had opened the inning with a single to left field.
The Tigers’ second inning got off to a promising start when Jake Simpson doubled to deep center field. After a one-out walk to Mabile, however, Simpson was picked off second.
Brookhaven added to its lead on run-scoring triples from Zach Halliwell and Seals to make it 4-1.
McComb sliced the deficit to 4-2 on Brock’s two-out solo home run in the third.
The Panthers stretched their lead to 8-2 with a four-run fourth inning highlighted by Peavey’s two-run triple to deep center field.
McComb threatened in the home half of the fourth on consecutive two-out singles from Marquel Carroll and Dominique May. The two runners, however, were stranded when Foster got the next hitter to pop out to second base.
After Rowell recorded his only 1-2-3 inning of the night in the fifth, the Tigers again threatened when Terrell walked with one out and went to third on Rowell’s two-out double inside the third-base bag and down the left-field line.
Foster, however, struck out the next batter for the third out of the inning to squelch the McComb rally.
Brookhaven tallied two more runs in the sixth on a single by Peavey, two McComb fielding errors and two passed balls.
In the seventh, Foster singled, Elliot McKee walked and J.D. Britt reached on an error to load the bases against Simpson, who came in to relieve Rowell.
Peavey then drilled a1-1 offering from Simpson high over the right-field fence to make it 14-2.
McComb added its final run in the bottom of the seventh on doubles from Aultman and Brock.
Despite the lopsided loss, Jones remained optimistic about his team’s chances of turning around the season.
“We’re experiencing growing pains,” he said. “A lot of these kids are going from a junior high setting to the varsity level and it’s a lot more physical. That needs to develop.”
