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Frederica pounds Bulloch Academy at Gator Alley
BA Baseball
Frederica first baseman Puma Frankel is seen in the midst of his home run trot as the umpire signals for the home run in the fourth inning of Bulloch Academy's home matchup with the Knights. Frankel had two home runs and six RBI in the game as Frederica cruised to a lopsided 14-3 victory. - photo by JOSH AUBREY/staff

The Bulloch Academy baseball team rolled into their region matchup with Frederica with an impressive 10-1 record and were 3-0 in region play. Monday the Gators learned the hard way that they just can’t show up to Gator Alley and expect the other team to hand them the win as Frederica won 14-3 in five innings.


The Knights jumped on the Gators early and often. Sloppy play and some timely Knight hitting saw Frederica open up a 5-0 lead. The Gators got one runback on a solo homer from Jack Conner, but the Knights stormed back with back-to-back home runs by Puma Frankel and Sutton Ellis as they opened up a 10-1 lead. They’d add a couple more home runs in the fourth and would go on to cruise to the win by the run rule.


“This was a wakeup call for sure,” said Gator coach Blakely Brown. “You could see it from when we got here that everybody wasn’t ready to play. This can actually be a good thing as the guys can see we aren’t good enough to just come out here and win if we aren’t focused and ready to play.’


Gator starting pitcher Bryson Scott was 5-0 with an ERA of 1.0 entering Monday's matchup and had dominated his competition. Monday Scott got roughed up and his defense wasn’t great and after the game Gator coach Blakely Brown, a pretty good pitcher himself, had some words of wisdom for Scott who seemed a little emotional on the mound Monday.


“When you are out there on the mound and you show the kind of emotion, he was showing the other team will feed off of that,” said Brown. “You have to keep things level on the mound and don’t get too high or too low. When you give up a couple hits and they see it getting to you they will feed off of that and things can get out of control like they did tonight.”


Brown is hoping the Gators can learn from Monday’s loss and is still hopeful they can win the series with the Knights as the two teams play a doubleheader Thursday in St. Simons.


“We still have two games against them so we can still win the series if we can rebound from this one,” Brown said. “It’s not like Frederica is a lot better than us or other teams we have played. We just have to be ready from the start and get back to what got us to this point. There is still plenty of baseball left to be played.”