Saints look to win District 6-A tournament

Published 3:37 am Thursday, April 15, 2010

NATCHEZ — Just because the Trinity baseball team has a playoff spot locked up doesn’t mean it can let up now.

The No. 1 seed Saints are set to face the No. 4 seed Tallulah Academy in the first round of the MAIS District 6-A tournament today at Huntington School. Assistant baseball coach David King said the team’s goal is to lock up the No. 1 seed out of their district for regional play.

“We went through the regular season undefeated (in district play),” King said. “The bottom line is, we’re the favorites, but anything can happen in tournament play.

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“We’re guaranteed a playoff berth since we were No.1 in district, but we have to win out in the tournament to get the No. 1 seed in region, so we still have something to play for.”

King said his players’ experience in big games in several sports should help the team in having the right mental approach from here on out.

“We have a competitive group of baseball players that got to the second round of AA last year,” King said.

“Moving down a class, we feel like we’re experienced at this level and are ready to go. All the kids on this team played football, and most played basketball, so they’ve seen some big games before. I’m sure they’re going to have a business-like approach.”

One thing the Saints will have to avoid is a letdown if they happen to gain a large lead. Trinity led 12-4 against rival Centreville Monday night, but managed to just barely hang on and win 12-11.

“Centreville is a playoff-bound AA team, and it was good to get a win, but we certainly had a big emotional letdown (Monday),” King said.

“It was certainly a good wakeup call, in that people aren’t going to lay down when we get up by eight. We’ve been scoring a lot of runs — I think we’ve scored at least 12 runs the last eight to 10 games — but the other night showed us that people aren’t going to stop playing. We’re going to score, but we can’t walk people and make mental errors in the field.”

However, King also said he thinks his team is eager to get to the postseason and prove what its capable of.

“I think these kids are excited about the playoffs, and feel like they can play with anyone in Class A,” King said.

“We just have to go out there, focus on the little things and get our fundamentals down. We just need to play seven innings of baseball, instead of five like the other night.”