Eagles in unfamiliar spot as playoffs begin|[4/17/06]
Published 12:00 am Monday, April 17, 2006
After his team split a doubleheader and lost the MPSA District 4-A championship to Tri-County, Porters Chapel Academy coach Randy Wright joked that he didn’t remember how to prepare for the playoffs as a No. 2 seed.
It has been a long time since the Eagles were in this position – 2000, to be exact. PCA was in the second year of its string of eight straight playoff appearances, and most of its current players were still in elementary school.
Thanks to a difference of one run in that doubleheader with Tri-County, however, PCA is once again a No. 2 seed. The Eagles (18-8-1) will open the playoffs Tuesday night at 7 at Benton Academy – the team that eliminated them last season – and face a much tougher road through the postseason than in previous years.
“We’re just going to have to travel that first game every time and play the number one seed every time. We definitely put ourselves behind the 8-ball,” Wright said. “It’s going to be as tough as it could possibly be. Benton in the first round is as tough a matchup as we could have.”
The difficulty of the matchup may be compounded by the Eagles themselves. The team has lacked a spark at times this season, resulting in a rollercoaster campaign in which they may score 10 runs one game and get shut out the next.
It has been a frustrating process for Wright. He acknowledges that 18 wins and a playoff berth would be an outstanding season for most programs, while wondering just how good the Eagles could be if they bring their “A” game every night.
The divide between the “good” and “bad” Eagles was clear in Friday’s regular-season finale. PCA banged out 14 hits in an 11-1 win over Carroll Academy, then managed only four in an 8-2 loss to Hillcrest in the second game of a doubleheader.
“We just have to be focused when we get to the ballpark,” Wright said. “If we’re focused when we get to the ballpark we have a pretty good team.”
Facing Benton should be enough to keep the Eagles focused, at least for one round.
The Raiders beat PCA in three games in a second-round series last season, denying the Eagles a third straight trip to the MPSA Class A finals. Benton later lost in the North State finals.
The Eagles got a small measure of revenge by crushing Benton 39-0 in the first round of the football playoffs, but PCA second baseman Cole Smith said it’d be sweeter to beat the Raiders in baseball.
“They beat us in baseball. We always want to beat them in the same sport they put us out in,” Smith said.