CHOCOWINITY — Southside got behind the eight ball quickly in Tuesday’s 1-A Coastal Plains Conference clash with Pamlico County, which stands even at 5-5 and 2-2 in conference. The loss was the Lady Seahawks’ first league loss in four contests.

The setback isn’t much of a cause for concern as Southside is reacquainting itself after spring break. The team scheduled a game at a winless Kinston club on Monday as a sort of way to ease back into things. It didn’t work for much, though, because Southside exploded for 16 runs in just three innings, forcing an early conclusion via the mercy rule.

Those three innings didn’t do much to get the Lady Seahawks back into the swing of things. The Lady ‘Canes hammered them for four runs in the first inning and another five in the third. The early 9-0 hole was too much to overcome.

To some degree, it’s about finding the team chemistry that helped them in their first six games of the season. Even though the Lady Seahawks had two practices during spring break, there were players gone on vacation.

“There were a few that weren’t there that I expected, but they were on vacation,” coach Milton Ruffin said. “I thought we had some good chemistry going. When spring break did come in, I thought it broke our chemistry.”

Even after falling behind early on, Southside was able to settle in and threaten offensively. The Lady Seahawks had runners in scoring position in the first, third, fourth and seventh stanzas, but were only able to score five runs. While stranding runners was a problem throughout the contest, they showed the ability to recover from the early deficit, even despite the unseasonably cold weather.

In the end, the slow start was as problematic as leaving runners on.

“I was telling them they have to play from the first through the seventh inning,” Ruffin said. “They just weren’t ready to play at the beginning of the ball game there. We put ourselves in a hole.”

The focus turns to fundamentals now. It’s always a point for Ruffin and he believes sharpening the basics will help alleviate any steps the team may miss thanks to last week’s layoff.

“Spring break is over with. We come back and we start back with fundamentals,” he said. “Doing the things that we are good at. Repetition, repetition — getting good at every position.”

The slow starts and runners left on were the two major problems. Southside had a few errors in the game and addressing that on the practice field will nip them in the bud.

The return stretch doesn’t get any easier for the Lady Seahawks. They travel to a top-notch East Carteret team on Friday and then Northside on Tuesday.