Emporia Gold squad shows improvement in losses to Manhattan
By The Emporia Gazette (Contact)
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
The Emporia Gold squad might have lost two games on Tuesday — 11-3 and 9-1 decisions to Manhattan — but coach Jerry Cook wasn’t left frustrated afterwards.
In fact, he was quite pleased with his team’s effort.
“We hit the ball really well, and our pitchers minimized walks,” Cook said. “Most importantly, the guys were out there talking, enjoying the game.”
Cook said he was worried about how his team might respond after it gave up 34 combined runs and committed 21 errors in two losses to Augusta on Sunday.
Though the Gold squad didn’t focus much on hitting in the last week of practice, Cook said he was pleasantly surprised with his team’s production on Tuesday.
“We just hit the ball right to guys,” Cook said. “Things weren’t going our way. We were hitting the ball like we needed to do. They just didn’t fall in gaps.”
Emporia stayed competitive in both games until the last inning, when Manhattan used rallies to enforce the run rule.
James Rodriguez was the offensive highlight in Game One, going 2-for-2 with two doubles, a hit-by-pitch and all three runs scored.
In the second game, Emporia trailed just 5-1 going into the bottom of sixth before Manhattan rattled off four runs to end it.
Though the Gold squad had just one run, the team had runners on base in every inning except for one.
Cook also was pleased with his pitchers, who combined to walk just eight batters in the twinbill — a noticeable improvement from earlier games.
Josh Lambert started Game One for Emporia, while Zach Schuler and Brett McEvoy pitched in Game Two.
The Gold squad will take a week off before facing Lawrence at home next Tuesday.