Shorthanded Panthers take care of Schley County in five innings

PERRY — The end of flu season has taken its toll on the Perry Panthers (5-6), who were missing eight players and five starters in their 11-1 victory against Schley County (5-4) on Tuesday.

A silver lining was the opportunities presented to several players in the lineup, though thankfully for the Panthers this wave of sickness came before the first week of region play.

Junior Brody Shultz usually bats seventh and he moved up to cleanup, with senior Reid Ginn and senior Brady Preston moving from six and eight to five and six respectively.

It also allowed sophomores Carson McElheny and Storm Hammock and senior Logan Cooper to slip in the lineup. The latter three didn’t finish with a hit, but they did draw a combined three walks. The former were 4-of-8 for eight RBI. Ginn and Preston had four and three RBI respectively.

“A lot of guys got opportunities. They did a job, had some quality at-bats. Some of the new guys made some defensive plays,” Head coach Denny Bryant said. “It starts with our pitching. Zach [Herman] pitched another gem. He’s been really, really consistent for us this year. Just pounds the zone, gets outs. That gives our offense confidence, too.”

Herman finished his five innings on the bump with five strikeouts and no earned runs. An errant throw in the top of the second put a runner on second, and the ensuing double plated the Wildcats’ only run of the night.

As mentioned the middle of the lineup had a good night, but the top six all had at least one hit and all but one scored a run.

“We swung the bat well. Guys that have been swinging the bat all year stepped up and we had some new guys be able to step up too. So it was good to see,” Bryant said.

One area that remains a struggle for the Panthers is the defense. Inconsistency plagued the 2024-25 season, and Perry has had some wildly varying final scores already in this one.

Just last week they had a 14-1 win, 3-2 win and 12-2 loss. The previous week they allowed two separate eight-run comebacks on back-to-back nights and they’ve had four opponents put double digits on the scoreboard.

Outside of that errant throw their effort against Schley County was solid, but Bryant is actively trying to remedy the matter.

“I thought we played well tonight, but we still have been inconsistent this year defensively,” Bryant said. “We did make some changes, we got some guys playing some different positions and it’s seemed to work out. We’ve had one of our guys who’s been consistent in the middle, we moved him to the outfield and he’s like a new kid now.”

“I was able to move an outfielder to the infield, he’s played some infield for us, and it just makes us relax a little bit,” Bryant said. “[On] defense you can get in your head, you make one error here and it kind of snowballs. That’s seemed to work well for us. In the last three games we’ve had this lineup we’ve played really good defense.”

One area that’s seen significant improvement is catcher. Tyson Peters is the usual starter, but McElheny stepped in nicely on Tuesday.

“McElheny did a great job tonight. He can handle our pitching staff,” Bryant said. “He does a good job behind the plate. We did miss Tyson tonight. He’s been really, really, really good this year behind the plate controlling our pitchers, but also swinging the bat. He’s been hitting the middle of the lineup for us.”

“Especially with catching you can give away a little bit with offense, [but] you gotta have somebody back there that can be consistent and control the pitching staff. He caught a lot of games last year as a freshman,” Bryant said of McElheny. “He had his struggles but he’s been really consistent this year and gives us a backup, especially when we play those three-game series to give Tyson a rest.”

Perry was patient at the plate drawing 11 walks, two in the first inning that scored runs to give them the lead.

Ginn’s two-RBI double in the third was the start of a four-run inning for the Panthers, and in the fifth inning Preston walked the game off with a fielder’s choice to activate the run rule.

UP NEXT

Perry will rematch Schley County on March 4 at 5:30 p.m. on the road.