By Gary Corsair
Sports Writer
The Hayesville JV baseball team clouded up and rained on Tuscola early on March 16, but the Mountaineers came up with enough thunder of their own to prevail, 11-8.
“We started off like we were on fire, and then one inning the wheels fell off,” Hayesville Coach Joe Jack Sellers remarked.
Hayesville jumped to a 4-0 lead after one inning and held a 6-3 advantage after four before things went south.
“We had a couple of throwing errors, we had a ball we were going to turn two on and we threw it into leftfield and it really hurt us,” Sellers said. “When you give teams four or five outs an inning, they wind up scoring 7, 8 runs and you go from a 5-run lead to being down.”
Tuscola scored 8 in the fifth, which was more than enough to saddle Hayesville’s jayvees with their first loss after two wins.
All nine Yellow Jackets reached on hits. Unfortunately, five Hayesville fielders committed at least one error.
“We hit the ball well, but we still have a few things we have to correct defensively,” Coach Seller remarked,
Those corrections will have to come in practice since the jayvees don’t play a school with a B-team until mid-April.
Michael Mauney led Hayesville’s offense at Tuscola. He went 3-for-4 and scored twice. Ben Bethel went 2-for-3 with 2 RBI and a run. Designated hitter Peyton McGaha was 2-for-4 with an RBI. All three sluggers socked doubles.
Bethel also had 2 steals.