Published: May 07, 2008 01:28 pm            

Colonels’ late season struggles continue

By Jerry Burns / For The Times Tribune

The Whitley County Colonels continued to struggle Tuesday, losing an 8-1 decision to visiting Lincoln County. The loss was Whitley County’s eighth in a row.

Costly errors in the third and seventh innings led to runs by the Patriots and proved to be the difference in the game. Lincoln County scored four in the third and added three in the seventh.

“We’re on about an 8 game skid now, and the errors are just killing us,” Whitley County coach John Smith said. “Jordan (McCumbers) left a few pitches in the middle of the plate, and then he said his arm was hurting so we had to pull him out.”

The Colonels brought freshman Justin Partin in to relieve the injured McCumbers. Partin shut the Patriots down in the fourth, fifth and sixth innings, but Lincoln County took advantage of errors in the seventh and added three insurance runs to take the 8-1 win.

“(Partin) is a freshman and stepped in a few weeks ago to start throwing varsity for us,” Smith said. “He’s been coming along really good. He throws pretty hard for a freshman. He’s only going to get better, and we’re expecting big things for him later on in the next three years.

“That error probably got to him with him being young,” he added. “It kind of got in his head and he got a little wild on us there, but other than that I thought he did a great job.”

Whitley County has the rest of the week off before playing this weekend. Smith hopes the rest will give his team a chance to regroup and get back in to the win column.

“I don’t know if we’re tired or what the deal is, but we are going to take a couple days off here and rest up,” Smith said. “We’ll see if that helps us coming into the weekend. We’ve got Harlan and Cawood coming up.”



Lincoln County 8,

Whitley County 1

Lincoln County 104 000 3 8 7 1

Whitley County 000 100 0 1 3 3

WP - Keaton. LP - McCumbers.

        

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