Northside’s Ryan Arthur broke out of a slump in a big way on Wednesday as he went 3-4 with four RBIs, but his onslaught was not enough to overcome an early seven run deficit as the Panthers fell 9-6 to Pamlico.
Arthur had been struggling at the plate recently when his bat cracked and the unfortunate event seemed to have reversed his fortunes.
“I think he’d been about 1-for-12 in the last few games and tonight in his first at-bat he broke his bat,” Northside coach Keith Boyd said. “We were kind of joking that maybe (the slump) had to do with the stick and then he went 3-3 with the new bat.”
Arthur legged out a slow roller to break the slump, then went on to have two more hits and four RBIs for the Panthers.
“In his first at-bat with the new bat he basically had a swinging bunt,” Boyd said. “But it’s things like that, that can ignite people and give them some confidence and he went on to get two more hits in his next two at-bats and was seeing it better.”
It seemed as if the whole team’s luck changed a little bit too late on Wednesday as Northside (1-3) fell behind 7-0 before it struck back with what might have been its best offensive inning all season.
“After four innings we had about maybe one hit,” Boyd said. “Then all of a sudden we string together some hits in the fifth inning and we were able to get a few runs to make it 7-4.”
Though it came in a losing effort, the big inning was a welcomed sight for Boyd and his Panthers as they have been inconsistent at plate so far this season.
“That’s what we’ve not been doing. We just haven’t been consistently hitting,” Boyd said. “Our defense and pitching hasn’t been too bad at all and our base running has been pretty good, but we’ve just not been able to get on base a whole lot. We had 14 strikeouts. You can’t do that and win a ball game.”
Northside ended the night with six hits as Caleb Sherman went 1-2 with two walks, and both Brandon Barr and Caleb Alligood each went 1-3.
Starting pitcher Kirby Clark picked up the loss for the Panthers as he allowed seven runs in three innings.
In the fourth, Sherman came on in relief of Clark and pitched effectively, allowing two runs the rest of the way.
“We hung in there,” Boyd said. “Caleb Sherman came in and pitched really well. He had two innings of no-run ball until we gave up two in the seventh and one of them was unearned.”
The Panthers have shown flashes of potential but Boyd said his team must continue to improve its plate discipline.
“We’re getting fairly solid pitching, we just have to be more efficient at the plate,” Boyd said. “If we can do those two things well we can be scary to play. We just have to put together a disciplined effort on offense.”