Despite a three-hit afternoon from freshman Abby Newton, Bulloch Academy dropped their double-header to Gatewood by the scores of 10-4 and 4-0 Wednesday afternoon.
    “That was two of the better games we’ve played even though we lost,” said head coach Kyle Chambers. “It was a lot cleaner. We didn’t beat ourselves, we made them beat us.”
    The Gators looked to win their first game of the season on friendly grounds, but were upended by solid pitching from Gatewood and some unfortunate errors on behalf of the Gators. Those errors came as early as the first inning of game one, where BA saw the bases loaded against them with two outs.
    Gatewood hit a ball right back up the middle which was fielded cleanly by BA, but the throw wasn’t as polished — allowing the bases to empty out and turn an early 1-0 deficit into a 4-0 disadvantage.
    The following inning brought more trouble for BA. The Gators allowed a walk, then gave up seven hits in a row, allowing Gatewood to run up the score from 4-0 to 9-0. A fielder’s choice rang it up to 10-0, but the gaudy deficit never put a dent in BA’s spirt.
    “We all did a good job of staying positive today despite being down 10-0,” said junior McKenzie Crooms.
    Freshman Baylee Howard came through with a RBI groundout in the third inning to prevent the shutout, and then the Gators came back in the fifth inning with some more offense. With two runners on and two outs, Newton came through with a double to score both runners and cut the deficit to seven. Newton would come around to score on a wild pitch, making the young shortstop responsible for all three runs scored for BA in the final frame.
    “The pitcher was only kind of fast, so I was able to stay on top of her pitches,” Newton said. “I kept my back hand high like I had been working on in practice.”
    The second game saw a better defensive effort from BA, but the bats which appeared to be catching fire at the end of game one were cooled down by the pitching of Gatewood’s Brooke Tinsler. Tinsler pitched both games, amassing six strikeouts and only 1 earned run in seven innings. Five of those whiffs came in game two, where BA just couldn’t seem to find the right gap when swinging the bat.
    “We were getting the bat on the ball, it just wasn’t going where we wanted it,” Newton said.
    Newton, Mattie Wynn Hendrix, MiKayla Sands and Koree Jacobs each had hits in the second game, though they were the only four BA would lay down. Gatewood did all of their damage in the third inning, when Sydney Lack popped a triple into deep right field following two singles to make it a 2-0 game. A groundout and a double would bring the score to 4-0, which stood for the rest of the game.
    “Newton came through and made every play she needed to today after having a rough game against John Milledge,” Chambers said. “The infield as a whole was much better today. We keep improving defensively and we got runners on base today, unlike Monday.”
    Bulloch Academy will seek its first win of the season Monday when they face Robert Toombs Academy.