Eagles Look for Late Push

On Friday, April 14, 2023, the Williams Baptist Baseball team was set to square off against the number 8 ranked Missouri Baptist Spartans in Walnut Ridge. The Eagles found some magic and put themselves in a prime position for a historic finish.

Coming into the Missouri Baptist series, the Eagles found themselves on a skid after dropping all three games the weekend before to Columbia College and two during the week to Ouachita Baptist. Everything seemed to be bouncing the wrong way for the Eagles, whether it was untimely errors, unfortunate defensive plays from the other team, or weak hits that somehow found ways to get down. Nobody would blame Williams Baptist if they were to come in and get swept by MBU, but that is not what happened. 

Game one was a battle. MBU trotted out their ace, but WBU was not having any of that, rolling over and giving up business. Jacob Watkins would start the scoring in the bottom of the third with a homer to left field. The Eagles would hold onto this lead until the top of the fifth when an unfortunate bounce led to the ball rolling out of play and MBU scoring on the error. Tie game. However, this battle would go into extras, and MBU would find themselves up 2-1 in extras and win the game after a go-ahead homerun. 

Game two was not as lovely to the Spartans, and the Eagles would knock off the 8th-ranked team in the country 8-4. This was massive for Williams Baptist's conference tournament seeding because, after the weekend, the Eagles found themselves 3 games back from Lyon College in the AMC standings with six games left. The Eagles take on the Hannibal-LaGrange Trojans for senior day this weekend while the Lyon Scots travel to MBU. If Lyon drops the series in St. Louis and the Eagles sweep, they go into Batesville tied in the standing for the 4-seed.

Getting to the 4-seed is a massive advantage in the AMC tournament as you skip the play-in and only have to play one game on day one, but for Williams Baptist, it means history. A top 4 finish would be the highest in program history. 


https://wbueagles.com/sports/bsb/2022-23/releases/20230414tx81ti


Comments

  1. Rebekah PresleyApril 22, 2023 at 3:24 AM

    This was very engaging and well written. I look forward to seeing how the season ends.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Alex O.April 27, 2023 at 11:50 PM

    Random thought, I wonder what it’s like for an athlete to balance games and practices with class work and as of recently, finals. Either way, hopefully the school will do well.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

March is Madness

March Madness. It is said to be one of the most  electrifying  times in sports every year. Buzzer beaters, upsets, and Cinderella runs is what one can expect from the NCAA Tournament and conference tournaments every year.  The goal of every team in the nation starting in November is to make the tournament because once you make the field of 64 teams anything is possible and everyone has a chance to cut down the nets April 3rd.  There are two ways to make the tournament: at large bid or an auto bid. Auto bids come from every conference in the Division I ranks. Here is how your team can get an automatic place in the tournament — win the conference tournament. Seems simple enough, but for the smaller conferences such as the Patriot League typically only  receive  one representative; so in these "mid-major" conferences that conference championship means everything, and thus some of the most thrilling, gritty games will be in those conferences. This year Colgate won the Patriot Lea
Read more

A Fruitful Conversation About Home

Image
    Wynne, Arkansas, may not be known for many things these days. Most people don’t even know the little town forty minutes from Memphis, and Jonesboro exists. However, the home of the YellowJackets has quite a history in Eastern Arkansas.       Wynne is the county seat of Cross County, Arkansas, and this makes it very important to the economic development of Eastern Arkansas. Way back in the day, Cross County and Saint Francis County, the county directly south of Cross, were the biggest producers of peaches in the United States.       Although some other industries in the county also played a factor in the economic development of Cross County and Wynne—mainly railroads in the World War II era. However, agriculture has always been a considerable employer in my hometown. However, most of Cross County today is dominated by rice, soybeans, and sweet potatoes. Following the Civil War, peaches and many other fruits and vegetables were planted across the state to stop the overharvesting
Read more