It's Another Weekend Sweep for the Eagles

David Finney

Waleska, GA - If you watched the Eagles play this weekend, you would think it was a repeat of the past weekend where the Eagles swept Bluefield.  In the Bluefield series, Pablo Barquero pitched a shutout win in game one followed by Foley pitching a great game two the next day. This week, the series was with Montreat and the Eagles would have another sweep led by the "one-two punch", Pablo Barquero and Ethan Foley. Barquero pitched a great game on Friday evening holding the Cavaliers to just one run and the Foley did the same for the middle game of the series on Saturday afternoon. After winning on Friday, 2-1, the Eagles would open up their offense in this game, 11-1. In the final game of the series, the Eagles would come from behind to win convincingly, 9-4, with a combination of pitchers getting the job done.

Game Two

Ethan Foley would be the main focus of game two. Foley has made himself the number two guy just behind Barquero and the two guys going back-to-back is a devastating combination for opponents of the Eagles. Foley is very similar to Barquero where they put the ball across the plate to make the batters put it in play.  Most of the time, it is a pop-up or a line out to the infield. Foley will sometimes rack up the strikeouts, but other times he lets the defense make the plays behind him. 

Foley would have a great game in the second game of the series as he would have 3 strikeouts, 3 hits, and only allowed one run for the Cavaliers. This can be frustrating for the opposing teams because they will get a man on base and then Foley and the Eagles will get a pop-up or turn a double-play to get out of an inning. That is just what happened in this middle game as Foley would shut the Cavaliers down only allowing one run in the game.

The batters for the Eagles would get everything going in this game scoring eleven total runs. Jacob Profit would have a great game hitting going 4 for 5 with a couple of stolen bases. Tucker Zdunich would go 2 for 2 with two doubles and Jarrett Burney would go 2 for 4.  Lance Dockery would have a triple in the second inning and he would eventually make it home for a run. 

The Eagles would have 14 hits in the game which would help produce the 11 runs. The first, second, and third were all big innings for the Eagles and gave them the lead that they would need so nothing was in question on the outcome. With Foley only allowing one run (which came in the top of the eighth), just a couple of runs would do, but the Eagles got on a roll to put up the high goal total. 

Game Three

Game three would see several pitchers make it to the mound for the Eagles. Parker Miller would get the start where he would only get in two innings before being pulled. He recorded 2 strikeouts but also gave up 3 runs to put the Eagles temporarily behind before they started scoring in the bottom of the third where they would score 4 runs to get the lead back. Hunter Paulsen would come in to relieve Miller and get in two innings as well before being relieved. He would not allow a Cavalier run in his time on the mound. 

Jordan Hampton and Blake Rogers would both come in to pitch the next inning with Hampton getting the first out and then Rogers getting the last two outs. Rogers would have one strikeout and allow one more Cavalier run. Will Casel would come in next to get the final two innings and he would record one strikeout and would not allow another run to end the game, 9-4.

It would take a few innings to get the offense going in this game, however, they had enough multi-run innings to give them the runs they needed for the win. Lance Dockery and Jarrett Burney would both score a couple of runs in this game to help the Eagles. Alex Coulter would get a double in the final game of the series which extended the Eagles' lead to 6-3 after the fourth inning. The Eagles would score in every inning after the first three. Tucker Zdunich and Shayne Campbell both had 2 RBIs in this game and Patrick Baggett, Lance Dockery, and Jarrett Burney would all get RBIs as well.

The Eagles would go on to sweep Montreat with the third game final score, 9-4. The Eagles seem to be clicking at the right time as the spots for the conference tournament start to line up. There is still a few weeks left in this season, but they are on a hot streak at the moment and the good play has moved them into second place in the conference.  The Eagles will be back in action on Tuesday for an away game at Georgia State which is categorized as an exhibition game. They will be on the road for another conference weekend series with Union (KY) on Friday and Saturday.