[5/20/04]The Porters Chapel Academy Eagles went back to work Wednesday, with heavy rakes in their hands and heavy thoughts on their minds.

The Eagles practiced for the first time since last Thursday in preparation for Game 2 of the Academy-A state championship series with Heidelberg. Rain has delayed the series nearly a week, and the death of PCA football coach and athletic director Bubba Mims made finishing it an afterthought for most of this week.

“It’s going to be difficult. It’s something that we need to do, though,” PCA coach Randy Wright said. “We can hope that maybe it will help us to get through this as best we can. It’ll probably do us some good to get back out on the field.”

Wednesday’s practice marked the first time the Eagles have set foot on a baseball field since Mims died at his home on Sunday. Mims also served as an assistant baseball coach at PCA, and he didn’t seem to be far from the players’ thoughts on Wednesday.

The Eagles were subdued, toning down the usually boisterous trash-talking and joking. Toward the middle of practice, a parent arrived with one of the team’s tributes to Mims their hats, with the word “Bubba” freshly stitched into the back.

A more fitting tribute, the Eagles agreed, would be to go out and win two games against Heidelberg when the series resumes today. Heidelberg beat PCA 12-2 in Game 1, and can wrap up the best-of-three series with one more victory. If PCA wins Game 2, Game 3 will follow immediately afterward.

“It’s going to be hard to play, but we’ve still got to play with a lot of heart,” PCA pitcher Ryan Hoben said. “I know he would have wanted us to win it, because that’s what he always talked about. We just want to win it for him.”

Infielder Humphrey Barlow agreed with Hoben.

“That’s all it’s about now,” Barlow said.

It has been a long two weeks for the Eagles, even without coping with Mims’ death.

Since beating Franklin to win the South State championship on May 7, the Eagles have taken the field only three times. The 9 inches of rain that have fallen on Vicksburg in the last 10 days have kept them off the practice field for all but two afternoons. Both times, the workout was limited to taking grounders and fly balls on the school’s football field, and hitting in the batting cage.

“Strictly talking about the game, we haven’t done anything in the last week,” Wright said. “With the rain, and everything that’s gone on, we’ve done nothing. It’s going to be difficult for us timing-wise … I’m sure it’s going to make us a little bit rusty.”

On Wednesday, the Eagles alternated shifts between those drills and hoeing weeds out of the infield. The rain turned the field into a muddy mess, leaving standing water in several places and mud nearly everywhere. The ground squished under Wright’s feet as he walked through the infield grass, and the outfield grass was several inches high.

Until this morning, Wright wasn’t sure if the field would be playable by this afternoon. Given the circumstances of the past week, he said Heidelberg would probably be willing to postpone the series for yet another day.

Wright was eager to play again, though, not just to finish the series but to take his players’ minds off their grief for a few hours.

“I don’t know if an extra day is going to help us. If I felt like it was going to help us, I’d push it to Friday anyway,” Wright said. “Heidelberg has been real supportive of our situation and expressing their sorrow for us. They’ll do whatever it takes to play the game whenever we can get it in. They’ve been real good about that, and if we needed to push it to Friday I’m sure they would let us do that.

“I think it’s important that we play it as soon as possible. I think it’s something that we need to do.”