Wildcats baseball team loses

The Enterprise High School Wildcats came out of the gates swinging Friday and before an 11-4 win against Houston Academy ended, Wildcat batters had earned 16 hits.
Senior Zach Kandle was the winning pitcher; he worked 4 and 2/3 innings, gave up a pair of hits, one earned run in the fourth inning that scored off him, and struck out eight Raiders.
Ryan Tanner relieved Kandle and went the remaining 2 2/3 innings, allowing no runs or hits and striking out 4.
Kandle helped his own cause with a 2-for-2 performance at the plate.
Senior Brett West went 3-for-4, as did junior Trey Smith.
Senior Chris Morris was 3-for-5 and had a pair of triples. Morris had 22 homeruns in the recent Homerun Derby competition in Dothan.
Junior Jason Jordan had a 3-for-5 day for the Wildcats.
“We had a great night hitting the baseball,” said veteran EHS coach Shawn Gilmer. “I was proud of everyone. We all went up to the plate and did what we are supposed to do.
“Defensively, we played well except for a couple of plays in the 5th that cost us 3 unearned runs. That kind of stuff can’t happen when we are in tight games if we expect to win.”
G.W. Long pitchering quieted the Cats on the Rebels field Saturday; Long won, 4-0, despite Enterprise pitching that was far from poor.
Junior Justin Hancock opened for EHS and pitched 42/3 innings, allowed a pair of hits and a like number of runs; Hancock struck out 5 and walked 6 before giving way to fellow junior William Tremlett who pitched the final 11/3 innings, allowed 4 hits and 2 unearned runs.
Morris was 1-for-3 with a double, and junior Thomas Hughes was 1-for-2 and got the only other Enterprise hit
“We had 2 hits and 16 strikeouts,” Gilmer explained. “Their pitcher, Zach Payne, tied us up. As good as we looked Friday night at the plate, we looked that bad Saturday morning. The pitcher was good but we didn’t have good at-bats. We had too many strikeouts looking and didn’t make them field the ball and make plays.
“This was a very good Long team we played, but we should have competed harder. Again, defensively we had a big error that cost us a couple of runs.”
The Cats got 9 hits in their second game Saturday but managed only 4 runs in an 11-4 loss to Smiths Station.
Smith (0-1) pitched 5 innings, allowed 8 hits and 9 runs, 4 earned, before giving way to Tyler Warren who pitched the final 2 innings, allowing a hit and 2 runs, neither earned.
Morris was 3-for-4 with a double and a pair of homers; and Smith went 2-for-3.
“This is the game I was worried about,” Gilmer said. “We made a couple of errors Friday night that didn’t hurt us because we were so far ahead, and then we made a couple in the first game Saturday that cost us.
“But we didn’t score in that game, so it didn’t cost us the game, but in this game the errors cost us a chance to win.
“Chris continued to hit the ball extremely well Saturday with a couple of homers and a couple of doubles.”
The Wildcats return to action Tuesday hosting Headland at 5 p.m.
Enterprise will entertain Graceville Friday, and Elba and Houston Academy Saturday in the Second Annual Mikey Tompkins Memorial Tournament, named for the former EHS player killed when a tornado struck the school March 1, 2007.