SKIATOOK — It certainly wasn’t Coweta’s pitching that doomed the Tigers in their regional game against host Skiatook on Thursday.
Coweta pitcher Jake Northern finished with nine strikeouts in his team’s 3-1 defeat at the hands of the Bulldogs. Coach Cody Pair said he expects more from his team at the plate.
“We expect to put more than one run up,” he said. “(Skiatook pitcher Jake Surritte) pitched it really well. We got to tip the cap to him. Hopefully, we get another chance at him because I think we can do better than that as a team. I think we can put a little bit more up on him than that.”
The only errant pitches of Northern’s day cost the Tigers big, however. Triples by Skiatook’s Brendon Babb and Shae Garner in the second and fourth innings, respectively, were responsible for all three of the Bulldogs’ runs.
Surritte remained undefeated on the year, allowing just three hits and striking out six
“Jake Surritte for us — he’s been good all year and he had another good game for us,” Skiatook coach Aaron Burrows said. “We played good defense. I kind of figured this was going to be a quick game with not many base runners with those two guys on the mound.”
Skiatook, who earlier Thursday blanked Durant 5-0, won’t play again until 6:30 p.m. Friday. The Bulldogs await the winner of Coweta vs. Durant.
Durant ousted Memorial 6-3 in the nightcap.
After skirting by Memorial 3-1 in the first game, despite three errors and falling to Skiatook, Coweta will play its elimination game at 4 p.m. Friday.
Pair’s passionate postgame message to his team reminded the players that, although they will get another chance Friday, there’s improvement to be made before then.
“We’re taking a loss here, but we still think that we’ve got a really good shot of winning this regional,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of pitching depth. We’ve got some really, really good arms left to go throw.”
And even though his team is 2-0 through Day 1 and sitting pretty for a berth in the 5A state tournament, Burrows said he can’t relax yet.
“I’ve seen these things go crazy in regionals,” he said. “We still got one more win.”
