[5/15/04]On Thursday afternoon, Porters Chapel Academy coach Randy Wright didn’t subject his team to field maintenance chores. With more rain in the forecast, he figured it would have been a waste of time.

He figured right.

Heavy rains Thursday night and Friday forced the postponement of Game 2 of the Academy-A state championship series with Heidelberg until Monday at 4:30 p.m. Game 3, if necessary, will follow afterward. Heidelberg (28-0) leads the best-of-three series 1-0.

Wright wasn’t so sure the series would continue on Monday, however. More rain is forecast through the weekend, and he said it was likely Game 2 would be pushed back to at least Tuesday.

“That’s the plan, but I’d be real surprised if we were able to play on Monday,” Wright said. “It’s going to have to stop raining. We have gotten a lot of rain the last couple of days … I was out there (Friday) afternoon, and it is completely flooded.”

Wright added that the three-day long rain delay wasn’t a big deal.

“It’s part of baseball. We know and understand that,” he said. “We’ve suffered through rain delays before, and we’ll have them again. We’ll be ready to go come Monday.”

Bad weather has plagued PCA (27-2) all week. A passing thunderstorm washed out practice on Monday, and steadier rains did the same on Wednesday. On Thursday, standing water still filled the areas around home plate, first base and third base, but the Eagles were able to practice for the first time in a week. They took grounders and fly balls on the school’s football field, and hit in the batting cage.

The practice was needed after the poor showing the Eagles gave in Game 1 Tuesday night at Heidelberg. PCA committed 10 errors in that 12-2 loss, as well as a slew of other mistakes.

The Eagles were ready to jump back on the field Wednesday, but the rain forced them to clear up some team issues instead.

“It would have been good to get out here, but I think we needed to sit around and talk about things,” said PCA pitcher Ryan Hoben, who allowed 10 hits but only three earned runs in the Game 1 loss.