Newberry Academy falls to PAC in baseball home opener

NEWBERRY — Newberry Academy Eagles varsity baseball team had rough outing in their home opener on Wednesday, March 19. The Eagles(0-3, 0-1 region) fell 19-8 against Providence Athletic Club or PAC.

Newberry Academy original home opener scheduled for March 11th against Laurens Academy was cancelled due to inclement weather. So, they had to wait another week to open up in front of their fans and it didn’t go as expected. The Eagles surpassed expectations by clinching a playoffs berth in their first season under head coach Ronny ‘Coach B’ Bannister so much is expected this year.

The home team found themselves in a jam in the opening inning of the game. They were down 2-0 before the legendary Coach B took to the mound for a pitching change. Well, that didn’t work because the Eagles gave three more runs to the PAC Panthers before finally ending the disastrous top half of the first inning.

Junior outfielder Thomas McLean gave his team some life with a double in his first at bat. Later that inning, Jody Ray Miles reached base on a bad throw and that help bring McLean home for the Eagles first score of the game. Newberry Academy trailed 5-1 going into the second inning.

The second and third innings didn’t get much better for the home team as the visiting Panthers were able to score seven additional runs while going through two additional Eagles’ pitchers. Miles took over for the Eagles in the early parts of the second inning, but it was short lived before Emory Pye took the mound. Pye pitched 2.2 innings and had five strikeouts while doing his best to limit the damage that had already been done.

The Eagles trailed 12-1 at the going into the bottom half of the third inning, but showed fight in the bottom third and the bottom half of the fourth inning. Newberry Academy was able to get two base runners on and laid down a sacrifice bunt to bring both runners in for two scores. Then, they got the bases loaded later on that inning and was able to add two runs to the scoreboard. They trailed 12-5 going into the top of the fourth inning and forced the visitors to use some of their bullpen with a pitching change.

Both squads were able to put up some runs in the fourth inning. PAC scored twice at the top of the fourth inning and Newberry Academy matched it with two runs of their own at the bottom of the fourth inning. The Panthers still led 14-7 going into the fifth inning.

PAC was able to finish the Eagles off in the fifth inning by adding another five runs to make the score 19-7 heading into the bottom of the fifth inning. Newberry Academy added another run, but it wasn’t enough to extend the game and they suffered their first home loss of the new season.

The Eagles had a day off and were back in action on March 21st. They took on region opponent Wardlaw Academy on the road and fell 4-3. Newberry Academy will have another road test against King Academy on March 25 before returning home to face them again on March 28th.