By Thomas Sellers Jr.
A trend that Millington Trojans Head Coach Colter Millican needs to stop immediately with the District 15-2A Tournament here continued on April 26 in Miles Park.
The Trojans welcomed the Bolivar Central Tigers to town and promptly took a 1-0 lead in the first inning Tyler Jordan scored on a Brock Musgrove sacrifice fly. Then the ugly trend appeared for Millington in the fourth inning. A couple of throwing errors allowed three Tigers to cross home plate sparking a Trojan comeback effort that concluded in a 8-6 defeat to Bolivar in 10 innings.
“We’ve done it four or five games in a row,” Millican acknowledged. “And we’ve loss four or five games in a row. We have to make plays.”
With the Tigers ahead 4-1 in the fifth inning, Millington rallied behind three Trojans reaching base via hit-by-pitch throws. Josh Coates came up with a timely double to clear the bases and deadlock the game at 4-4.
In the next inning another Millington miscue gave Bolivar a run and a 5-4 advantage. The Trojans answered in the bottom heal of the sixth inning with RBI singles from Alex Jennings and Coates to go ahead 6-5.
Just three outs from winning the district game, Millington gave up its firsts earned run of the game after a triple and sacrifice fly. The Tigers forced extra innings tied at 6-6.
In the top of the 10th inning, errors doomed the Trojans allowing Bolivar to plate two runners.
“I hope we do better,” Millican said. “I hope whenever there is a situation that comes up, somebody will be clutch. We’re just not doing things when we need to right now.”
With May here, Millican said his Trojans have done enough to win a few ball games. But those things that keep them out of the winner’s circle have to stop today.
“Somebody has to get a job down whenever there is a runner on second or third with two outs,” he concluded. “Instead of lining out, we’ve go to get a hit. It is as simple as somebody has to get a job done when the time comes.”
