New Bern-Southern Wayne baseball

By Andrew Stevens
Published in Sports on April 11, 2013 1:47 PM

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DUDLEY -- Southern Wayne may be back from spring break, but its offense has yet to return home.

The Saints failed to generate offense at key times in a 4-1 non-conference loss to New Bern at the Doyle Whitfield Athletic Complex on Wednesday evening.

Bears' starting pitcher Bailey Jones surrendered one earned run on six hits, struck out six and walked three in a complete-game effort.

Southern Wayne (10-7 overall) routinely looked at strikes, chased pitches off the plate and had just one base runner during the final three innings. The Saints lost their third straight game and have scored just five runs in the last 19 innings.

"We've got to be a whole lot more consistent at the plate," Saints' head coach Trae McKee said. "We're leaving way too many guys on with non-threatening outs. It is tough to win baseball games when you're scoring one run and it really puts a lot of pressure on your defense and pitching staff.

"We're taking fastballs in favorable counts and we're not working counts, and we're not having productive at-bats at all."

Southern Wayne executed some small ball with three infield singles to push across a run in the bottom of the second inning. Garrad Whitfield's two-out, RBI infield hit scored Cole Barwick to give the Saints a 1-0 lead.

Starting pitcher Jacob Hollingsworth retired the first 10 New Bern batters he faced before encountering trouble in the top of the fourth inning. The Bears pounded out four consecutive hits and Chandler Seagle's RBI single tied the game at 1-1.

Syril Smith followed with a two-run double that put New Bern in front 3-1. Smith tacked on an RBI single in the top of the sixth inning and finished 2 for 3 with three RBI.

Hollingsworth allowed four runs on six hits with four strikeouts and a walk. He took the mound loss. Cody Wendorf pitched a scoreless inning of relief.

"I thought Jacob pitched well," McKee said. "His change-up was pretty good. He made a couple of mistakes on the first pitch of some at-bats and then he elevated a ball in an 0-2 count that he left down the middle."

Southern Wayne plays host to Cleveland on Friday.

"Right now we're just trying to find another win," McKee said. "It doesn't matter who we're playing. We're just searching for some positive things to happen with this group."