Extra Innings: Perry’s loss to Coffee saw many firsts for the Panthers

The Perry Panthers are familiar with finishing a game in five innings, though usually they’re the victors.

The Coffee Trojans came to town on Wednesday and delivered a decisive 13-1 final through five innings, and there were several firsts for Perry.

Let’s get into Extra Innings…

PHOTOS: See more shots from Wednesday.

1) First home loss

While this may not be all that surprising given the Panthers’ (then) 19-2 record, it’s impressive nonetheless.

Wednesday was the first home loss for Perry this season, and since April 4 last year not counting the playoffs.

The best teams at every level dominate at home, which has been the case for the Panthers thus far.

2) Season-low in runs

Perry hasn’t been held to one run all season, the previous season low was four in a road victory over Howard.

The Panthers managed some decent hits on Wednesday, but the Trojans’ defense gave them problems on the bags.

Jackson Thompson got caught on a pickoff at first base, and Brady Bearden was caught stealing third base to end the second inning.

There were innings like the third, though, where starting pitcher Michael Strickland tore through Perry’s order. There were a lot of things that went into the season-low, according to Panthers coach Denny Bryant.

“I think just getting down early, our guys kind of pressed a little bit. Second time through the lineup a few guys had some good at-bats,” Bryant said. “But then again, we kind of dug ourselves a hole. The momentum wasn’t there. We got to learn from it. We got to quit looking at the scoreboard and play each pitch, play each out and compete.”

3) Tough competition, tough results

It’s no secret that Region 2-4A is no baseball powerhouse. It’s a competition between Perry and West Laurens for the top.

Westside (0-16) even forfeited their second game against Perry when it rained out instead of rescheduling if that tells you anything.

The region (outside of Perry and West Laurens) has a combined 28-63 record, and no team is above .500.

That’s not to say that’s the reason the Panthers lost, the above two sections have covered other reasons. It’s baseball, anything can happen.

That being said, there’s a reason Bryant scheduled Coffee before the biggest series of the year against West Laurens. Perry has to stop sleepwalking through mercy rule wins, which they’ve had nine of this year.

Whether or not they win against Coffee isn’t so much the point as it is to get prepared for the playoffs, where only the best teams will be. Bryant seemed to agree post-game Wednesday.

“We got to take the positive out of this as far as the mentality that we got to have as a team coming out against good teams,” he said. “Coffee is a playoff-caliber team and you can’t afford to make mistakes. You got to come out ready to go. So we just got to take what happened tonight, learn from it and get better from it.”

4) Looking ahead

The series against Coffee doesn’t ‘matter’ when it comes to the region standings, but it’s an important precursor to West Laurens and the playoffs.

Given Perry’s one region loss to the Raiders’ none, they’ll have to sweep West Laurens next week to claim a region championship, and more importantly a one-seed in the state playoffs.

Winning against Coffee on Friday would be nice, but at least showing improvement is important for the Panthers’ outlook in this year’s playoffs.