By Thomas Sellers Jr.
Munford senior Kyle Kelley had three hits against Marion helping the Cougars prevail 7-2.
Baseball is described as a mental game. Scotty Yount’s Munford Cougars got a crash course last week in a trio of game. The lesson began with a defeat and ended up with a pair of victories including a 7-2 win over the Marion (Arkansas) Patriots Friday night at the Munford Baseball Field. “We made an adjustment from Monday night,” Yount recalled. “It had nothing to do with on the field. I mention this in the preseason. We’ve got to focus on us. And just keep that positive energy on us. That team was not on the same plain as us. “But they got into our heads chirping out of the dugout,” he continued. “We reacted to that instead of reacting in a positive way. That’s something these guys are learning.” Obion County was able to erase a seventh inning deficit to beat the Cougars. The following night Magnolia Heights tried to use head games to get Munford out of its comfort zone. The strategy didn’t work with the Cougars winning. Next up was the Patriots. The youthful Marion took a 1-0 lead in the top of the third inning. During the first three innings, the Cougars scattered hits no managing a run. In the bottom of the fourth inning the Cougars tied the game with one swing. Austin Perry crushed a pitch for a homer run over the left field wall to deadlock the game at 1-1. Munford took the lead at 2-1 later in the frame when Kyle Kelley smacked his second single of the game driving in Corey Simmons. Garrett Baugh made the score 3-1 before the fourth inning concluded with a base hit of his own. “That’s sort of what’s been going on up until this point,” Yount said. “We’ll have a big inning in every game. The thing about it is we’ve been in situations in every game we’ve played to really bust it wide open. And we’ve just haven’t been getting the job done.” The Cougars iced the game in the fifth inning in large part to Kelley’s single driving in a pair of runs to make the score 5-1. “Right now with him being a senior, he’s my most irreplaceable player for next year,” Yount said of Kelley. “At the plate, he’s been everything I thought he would be. He’s a kid in that two-spot who can handle the bat and under the situation that he’s in the time he gets up there. He’s been great up until this point.” The Cougars added two more runs to go ahead 7-1. Marion scored in the top of the seventh inning but Perry closed out the victory.
“On the flip side of that it’s early,” Yount concluded. “Hopefully we can put it together at the right time. And the the plan is to be better today than we were yesterday. We want to be better in April than we were in March and be better in May than we were in April.”
