Hardy threw six innings against Region 8-AA South’s second-place team, surrendering just two earned runs, four hits and five walks. Three of those walks, however, came in the first inning. Hardy allowed no hits through three innings.
“Caleb Hardy pitched as good a game as we’ve had this year,” Eagle coach Matt Pruitt said. “He hit his spots and mixed his pitches. Most importantly, he was a competitor (Monday). He had the game face on out there. He fought every pitch, the whole time he was out there.”
Hardy also went 1-for-2 at the plate with a walk.
Offensively, East Jackson — which was coming off of a pair of losses to Jackson County — left “at least half a dozen” runners on base, Pruitt said. The Eagles’ lone score came in the seventh.
“The disappointing part was that we didn’t pick him (Hardy) up,” he said. “He went out there and fought like crazy, and we did almost nothing to help him in the field or at the plate. You just hate to waste such a great effort on the mound. When you get a performance like that, everybody has to step up and honor what the pitcher’s doing by stepping up, and we didn’t.”
Still, Pruitt said he felt his team went toe-to-toe with one of the state’s best teams.
“We played an excellent Elbert County team to a draw for most of the game,” he said. “We didn’t give up a big inning. We showed some fight in the seventh. But in a game like that, we’ve got to turn on the killer instinct and pull out all the stops to win. Hopefully we won’t let another chance slip through our fingers like that again.”
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