By BAKER ELLIS / Sports Editor

CALERA – Spain Park traveled to Calera on March 2 to play the upstart Eagles in a doubleheader. Calera came into the game with an 8-1 record while the Jaguars came in at 7-5. Both teams picked up a win and a loss in the doubleheader, as Calera won the opener 6-3 before Spain Park shelled the home team 16-2 in the second.

 

Game 1. Calera 6 – Spain Park 3

Calera scored four runs in the first inning of the opening game and held on to win 6-3. With two outs in the bottom of the first, Devin Buckhannon singled to left field, which scored Kevin Dowdell and Will Glasscock to give the Eagles a 2-0 lead. Jack Oclair and Zach Gaines were then walked in quick succession to load the bases, and Will McKinney then singled to centerfield, scoring two more and giving Calera a 4-0 lead from the jump. Two more runs from Calera in the fourth brought the score to 6-0, and three runs over the course of the fifth and sixth innings were not enough for Spain Park to claw back into the game.

Oclair and McKinney pitched for Calera in the first game while Spencer Graham and Nic Carra took the mound for Spain Park. The Jaguars only mustered one hit against Oclair and McKinney while the Eagles got six hits off of Graham and Carra. Quinton Hoffman accounted for the only hit for Spain Park, going 1-for-3 from the plate, while McKinney went 2-for-3 with two RBIs to lead the way for Calera.

 

Game 2. Spain Park 16 – Calera 2

While the Spain Park bats were next to silent in the first game of the doubleheader, they woke up in the second, accounting for seven hits, while Calera also helped the Jaguars’ cause with five fielding errors, which led to 10 of the Jaguars’ 16 runs.

Heading in to the fifth inning, Spain Park held a tenuous 2-1 lead over Calera before erupting for 14 runs over the next three innings to get the huge win. Will Battersby, Jake Whitehead, Clarence Grayson and Trae Stacy all took the mound for Spain Park while Dowdell, Palmer Studdard, Tyler Ferguson and Buckhannon each pitched for Calera. Hayden Freeman led Spain Park from the mound with two hits and two RBIs, while five different batters had one hit each for Calera.

 

Calera moved to 9-2 after the doubleheader while Spain Park moved to 8-6.

Stats via Gamechanger.