CHOCOWINITY — Southside is in some trouble. In five tries, the Seahawks have picked up just one win in the 1-A Coastal Plains Conference. Two of those losses have come in extra innings. The two regulation-length shortcomings were both one-run games.

The most recent was a seesaw game with rival Northside on Tuesday that ended in a 9-8 loss. The visiting Panthers owned a 3-2 lead entering the bottom of the sixth before the Seahawks rattled off six runs. It gave them an 8-3 lead. All they needed was to get three outs to preserve the win.

“I told them we are beating ourselves in a number of these ballgames,” Southside coach Kevin McRoy said. Only two of Northside’s nine runs were earned.

“We played six innings of very good ball. Defensively, pitching, and hitting. We actually hit the ball. We got base hits. We’re not mentally tough right now. We’re letting one error get in our head and it becomes two errors. We’re snowballing. Pitchers struggle and it snowballs to the next batter. We’ve got to be mentally stronger if we’re going to turn this thing around.”

Two leadoff walks and an RBI double from Tanner Alligood cut Southside’s lead to 8-4, but Cody Modlin induced a groundout. A four-run cushion and two outs was more than manageable.

Then an error gave Alligood and Parker Boyd the opening to score. As their lead was quickly evaporating, the Seahawks managed to get a second out on a fielder’s choice. They still led, 8-6, and needed just one more out.

Two more walks loaded the bases. Dahlton O’Neal took over on the mound, but walked in the proximate run as he tried to settle into the high-pressure situation. Matthew Marslender scored the tying run on Grant Talbot’s single to shortstop. The Panthers claimed the lead when an error on the ensuing play let Ethan Cosentino come home.

“We just played really defensive at the plate,” Northside coach Keith Boyd said. “We wanted to make sure they threw strikes. They kind of had a hard time finding it there. Things got a little tight on both sides. We had a hard time finding it in the sixth. … We caught a couple of breaks. That’s kind of the way we’ve lived all year long.”

With runners all around him, O’Neal struck out a batter to escape the jam. Alligood set down the first two Seahawks that came to the plate. Carter Barnes reached on an error to put the tying run on, but ended up stranded on first.

It’s been the tale of two teams. Of their five one-run games, the Panthers have come out victorious in three and now sit at 5-2 in the CPC. Southside has eight league games remaining. It’s split evenly with four before the Easter break and four after. Northside plays twice more before the break, which features non-conference tournaments, before wrapping up the campaign with a five-game stretch that features three conference games.

The Panthers have played a mentally tough brand of baseball to give themselves strong positioning in the CPC. The absence of that trait has left the Seahawks scrambling to find their footing halfway through the league slate.