Prep Baseball & Softball: Mixed PCHS results at HamCo
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[A rugged 2010 start continued Wednesday afternoon for Pinckneyville Community High School's baseball team.
The Panthers, now 0-3, lost 12-3 on the road against Hamilton County and are slated to host undefeated Murphysboro at 4:30 Thursday afternoon.
HamCo's record is 1-2.
"You are going to struggle any time that you have more errors than hits," PCHS coach Alan Engelhardt said. "We haven't made any adjustments at the plate from game one to three, we aren't taking our fundamentals seriously."
Banging out a dozen hits, HamCo scored six times in the second inning against Panther starter Bryant Shute (0-2).
Pinckneyville plated single tallies in the second and third innings and managed just two hits the entire game- a double by Landon Chandler and Michael Rakers' single.
"We hang our heads as soon as we run into a little adversity," Engelhardt said. "Those are three things that are a recipe for disaster. We'll shake things up a little next game and see where we are at afterward."
In addition to Shute, the Panthers used five other hurlers in the contest-Matthew Nichols, Noah Hepp, Rakers, Jeff Thornton and Evan Chapman.
SOFTBALL
The Lady Panthers improved to 5-0, but not without a struggle.
A nine inning 6-3 win over the much-improved Lady Foxes wasn't sealed until RBI from Taylor Cicardi, Mo Ramsey and Kortney Crawford in the last frame.
Ramsey, Crawford and Cicardi all enjoyed two-hit games. Cicardi's day included a two-run homer.
Sarah Malanowski (3-0) tossed the final three innings with six strikeouts in relief of Emily Chapman.
"Hamilton County is a pretty good team," PCHS coach Greg Hale said. "But we showed signs of being a good team by finding a way to tie the score in the seventh and push it to extra innings."
Cicardi's blast knotted things at 3-3.
Thursday, PCHS hosts Murphysboro.
Pinckneyville plays West Frankfort Saturday morning to open the Panther Invitational.
2010 Panther Invitational Softball
Tournament
Perry Co. Fairgrounds, Pinckneyville
Friday, March 26
Game #1-Pinckneyville vs. West Frankfort, 4:30
Game #2-Cobden vs. Columbia, 4:30
Game #3-Wauconda vs. Fairfield, 6:00
Game #4-Johnston City vs. Lebanon, 6:00
Saturday, March 27
Game #5 -Altamont vs. winner #1, 10 a.m.
Game #6-Vienna vs. winner #2, 10 a.m.
Game #7-loser #1 vs. loser #3, 11:30
Game #8-loser #4 vs. loser #2, 11:30
Game #9-winner #5 vs. winner #3, 1:00
Game #10-winner #4 vs. winner #2. 1:00
Game #11-winner #6 vs. loser #7, 2:30
Game #12-winner #8 vs. loser 5, 2:30
Game #13-loser #9 vs. loser #10, 4:00 (Third Place)
Game #14-winner #11 vs. winner #12, 4:00 (Consolation)
Game #15-winner #9 vs. winner #10, 5:30 (Championship)