Cougars Beat Curtis Baptist
The Piedmont Academy varsity baseball team started off on the right foot in the 2006 region schedule Tuesday by defeating visiting Curtis Baptist 13-2 in six innings.
Brent Brown earned the win for Piedmont and improved to 1-0 this spring. Brown worked four innings and recorded six strikeouts.
Trailing 2-0 after the top of the third, the Diamond Cougars put four runs on the board in the bottom half of the inning and would not trail again. Piedmont added six more in the fourth and finished the game off in the sixth inning on a bases loaded double by Zack Kinney.
“It’s always good to get a win in your first region game,” said Cougar coach Danny Camp. “It keeps you from having to work from behind right off the bat.”
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Josh Phillips worked two innings of relief Tuesday and was effective in the outing, his coach said.
Prior to Tuesday’s region opener, Piedmont played two games Monday in Macon against Class AAA foes Mt. de Sales and First Presbyterian.
The Cougars fell to Mt. De Sales 9-5 although they did battle the larger school. Camp said Mt. de Sales has solid athletes, but he was proud of his team for cutting into a 9-2 deficit to make the contest competitive.
A highlight of the game was the pitching of Josh Stevenson, who worked 2.2 scoreless innings.
“We competed with them,” Camp said. “We put the ball in play and did some good things. We wanted to see if we could compete with a team like that and we did.”
Randy Reagin was 2-for-4 at the plate while Andrew Stevenson and Cris Jackson both had a hit.
First Presbyterian proved to have a little too much for Piedmont in the Cougars’ second contest of the day. The Vikings won 10-0 in five innings. Piedmont’s bats never got on track as FPD pitching recorded 11 strikeouts.
The game was 1-0 until FPD scored six runs in the third inning. The biggest offensive threat for the Cougars came in the first inning when they were able to load the bases.
The Piedmont baseball team also fell to Thomas Jefferson 6-2 last Wednesday. Reagin was 2-for-3 with a homerun and two RBI while Taylor Jackson was 1-for-2 with a run scored.
Thomas Jefferson took advantage of eight walks.
“We aren’t going to win games walking batters and kicking the baseball around on defense,” Camp said.
Piedmont returns to action today against John Hancock at home in a 4 p.m. non-region contest.
The Cougars step back into region play at Gatewood Friday (4 p.m.) and at home against Brentwood Saturday (1 p.m.)
“Those will be big games for us because both of those teams will be factors in the region race,” Camp said.