Afternoon showers held off enough to allow Madison County and Habersham Central to get their game in Monday.
Madison County would have gladly taken a rain check.
Last-place Habersham Central handed the Red Raiders their most lopsided loss of the year, beating struggling Madison County 13-0 in Danielsville.
Madison County (4-7, 1-4) then played Rockdale County Wednesday, but results weren’t available at press time.
The Red Raiders — one year removed from a 21-win season and a trip to the state playoffs — find themselves in a rather unfamiliar position: a half game out of last place in 8-AAAA as of Wednesday.
Coach Charlie Griffeth said his team can’t worry about the region pecking order right now.
“We’ve just got to take a different approach and block out what everybody else is doing and standings watching and worry about hitting, fielding and throwing,” he said.
In the loss to Habersham Central, the visiting Raiders from Mt. Airy homered on the first pitch of the game and built a 5-0 lead after six innings before unloading on Madison County in the seventh.
Habersham Central brought 12 batters to the plate that inning, scoring eight runs to break the game open.
Habersham Central starter Dylan Charles fired a complete-game shutout, surrendering just five hits.
“If you can’t score, you can’t win,” Griffeth said. “We’ve got a lot of things we need to get better. We’re going to try.”
This marked Madison County’s fourth loss in five games.
The Red Raiders hadn’t played since last Thursday (March 18) when they lost to Heritage 9-2 in Conyers. Madison County was limited to four hits in that setback.
Heritage broke a scoreless tie in the bottom of the third with five runs. Madison County answered with two runs in the top of the fourth, but Heritage plated four more insurance scores in the bottom of the fifth to put the game away.
As of press time, Madison County’s lone victory in Region 8-AAAA was over Monroe Area, 5-2, on March 17.
Dylan Chandler and Dustin Roberts both went 2-for-3. Eddie Gilbert was 1-for-2 with a double. Bracken Turner had two sac fly RBIs. Steven Tiller, Gilbert and Kyle Dean each had one RBI.
