Perry drops two games to West Laurens

The Perry Panthers and West Laurens Raiders are scheduled to tussle three times this week to kick off region play. Game One was supposed to be played Monday at Perry but was canceled due to inclement weather and rescheduled for Tuesday.

Perry had a difficult time all Tuesday evening dealing with West Laurens pitcher Nolan Daniel and catching up to his accurate fastball pitches, who threw seven shutout innings, had 15 strikeouts and surrendered only one hit throughout the contest that resulted in a 5-0 loss for Perry.

“He’s a top-notch pitcher. He’s one of the best in the state,” said Perry Head Coach Tim Hutchens. “When he’s throwing the ball in the upper 80s, touching 90 (mph) it’s tough. I felt like we didn’t do a good enough job today competing in the box. I thought some of our guys had an approach but some of our guys went away from the approach.”

Perry (8-5 record, 0-1) got off to a slow start in the first inning with West Laurens shortstop Guy Anderberg scoring from third base to home off a passed ball and third baseman Carson Estep knocked in a run with a sac fly to go up 2-0. The Raiders extended the lead and put the game out of reach in the third inning when Daniel knocked in an RBI single (finished 4-4 at the plate) and two more runs were scored off an infield error.

“Anytime you only have one hit, you have to change something,” added Hutchens. “Against a guy like that throwing around the strike zone and throwing strikes – mainly fastball strikes – we preach middle away approaches and that’s where we hit most of our balls on the backside.”

Hutchens said even though they did not produce any runs, he was pleased with his starting pitcher John Micah Law’s performance (eight strikeouts, nine hits, gave up three earned runs in six innings pitched). “I thought he did well. He competed,” said Hutchens. “I thought he through the ball well enough to win.”

If there was anything encouraging the Panthers can take from the loss, it was that they were able to break up the perfect game and no-hitter Daniel had going in the seventh inning when Perry’s Gannon Popham got on base with a grounder single, that they could possibly carry into the next two games.

“Right now our season started and we’ll in region play,” said Hutchens. “We’ll going to get after it and we have a chance to win the next two games.”

In Game Two Wednesday evening at West Laurens, the Panthers fell 7-2 to the Raiders. West Laurens got off to a fast start scoring two runs in the first inning for the second consecutive game. They would add five more runs across the next six innings to secure another region win. Perry moved to 8-6 on the season and 0-2 in region play.

Perry and West Laurens will meet for the third time this week Friday night at Perry.

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