ECBL: Snow Hill benefits from Eastern Wayne's defensive miscues

By Cam Ellis
Published in Sports on July 1, 2015 1:48 PM

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cellis@newsargus.com

With the Eastern Carolina Baseball League ending Thursday, Eastern Wayne head coach Randall Fields is stressing that his team finishes strong during what has been an up-and-down season.

Two of the this week's four games have been more down than up.

One day after making six errors in a loss, Eastern Wayne committed four errors in a 9-5 loss to Snow Hill Post 94. While the ECBL centers on developing players' fundamentals for junior varsity and varsity play on the high school level, 10 total errors in two games hasn't pleased Fields.

"You've got to take the game play by play," Fields said. "You can't let your mistake last play affect you on this play. You have to come out and make every play like it's your first of the game."

Rising junior Brock Johnson started on the mound and struggling from the beginning. He allowed a two-run home run in the first inning, but held Snow Hill scoreless until he gave up four runs in the fourth. Post 94 hit another home run and benefited from two errors.

Johnson officially worked three innings, allowed four runs on four hits and struck out five Snow Hill batters.

"He didn't do as badly as the score indicated," Fields added. "He gave up two home runs on offspeed pitches that he left up in the zone. He wasn't as sharp as he was last outing, but he was sharp enough to win if the defense had held up behind him."

Eastern Wayne struggled at the plate after a big first inning.

Justin Edwards had a two-RBI double down the left-field line and Johnson had an RBI single. But the Warriors would score just two runs over the final six innings.

But EW had its chances.

The Warriors stranded 11 batters and left at least one runner on base in each inning but one. They loaded the bases in the fifth on three consecutive walks, but scored just once. Snow Hill got a strikeout, threw a runner out the plate and got a comebacker to the mound to end the inning.

Eastern Wayne concludes regular-season play at home today with a doubleheader against East Duplin. Fields and his coaching staff hope to see how their players have progressed since their ECBL opener one month ago.

"I think we've seen a lot of improvement from a lot of players," Fields said. "We've had a couple guys really step up in their at-bats. Our catcher, Case Kermode, made a big jump for being in eighth grade. Overall I'm pleased with everybody's growth this summer, even if the results haven't been there."