Joseph Ivey of Porters Chapel Academy slides into home in the first inning as Amite pitcher John Birdsong covers the plate.(The Vicksburg Post/Christin Flowers)

[05/01/02]The little things kept piling up against Porters Chapel Academy Tuesday night mental mistakes, errors, bad bounces, a lack of timely hits.

Eventually, Amite was able to use them to rally from a 5-1 deficit and take Game 1 of the second-round Academy-A playoff series, 11-7.

Game 2 and, if necessary, Game 3, will be Thursday at Amite (15-5) beginning at 4 p.m.

“The first two or three innings, we played mistake-free and we were ahead. Then we started making some physical mistakes and some mental mistakes and we got beat,” PCA coach Randy Wright said. “We’re down a game. It’s definitely going to be tough … If we play baseball like we’re capable of playing, we can go down there and win two.”

Jeremy Perkins led Amite’s 15-hit attack by going 2-for-4 with a triple, home run and three RBIs. William Dillon also homered, Andrez Aguilar and Robert Young both doubled and scored a run, and John Birdsong went 3-for-4.

Only five of Amite’s runs off PCA starter Andrew Embry were earned. The Eagles committed three errors and had eight wild pitches or passed balls. Embry surrendered 12 hits, but walked just two and struck out 11.

“They hit him. We knew coming in that we were going to have to score eight or 10 runs to win the game. They’re the best-hitting team we’ve played this year,” Wright said.

PCA (19-6), meanwhile, struggled to get into an offensive rhythm. The Eagles had only five hits two of them by Josh Rush, who was 2-for-2 with an RBI single but had runners on in every inning. The Eagles struggled to get them around, leaving five in scoring position and having another erased on a line-drive double play.

“We had lots of chances to score runs, but just couldn’t come through with that hit right there,” Wright said.

Birdsong started for Amite, but lasted only a third of an inning. He walked three of the five batters he faced, uncorked a wild pitch and allowed an RBI single to Rush before leaving with PCA ahead 3-0.

“John has a tendency to throw better at home, and we decided to save him for that,” Amite coach Stephen Cooksey said. “He just didn’t have it tonight. It was just a bad night.”

Young relieved and got out of the jam, but surrendered a pair of unearned runs in the second that gave the Eagles a 5-1 lead.

Dillon’s second-inning homer put the Rebels on the scoreboard and snapped Embry’s 21-inning scoreless streak.

In the third, the tide began to turn.

Young led off with a bad-hop infield single and Perkins followed with a triple to the wall in right-center to cut it to 5-2. Perkins then scored on a passed ball third strike to Stewart Gordon, and Gordon eventually circled the bases on a single, a wild pitch and another passed ball.

“We started getting rolled up and started hitting at the plate, and pulled it off,” Young said.

In the fourth, Amite found the holes in PCA’s defense for a pair of singles and an error, took the lead on Perkins’ two-run homer, and extended it to 8-5 with the help of a throwing error.

The Rebels went on to add a run in the fifth on a wild pitch which bounced off the backstop and back toward the plate, over the head of PCA catcher Ryan Hoben and two in the sixth on Young’s double, an RBI single by Josh LeGrange, and the Eagles’ third error of the game.

Joseph Ivey relieved Embry after LeGrange’s single and finished the game with 11/3 innings of scoreless relief.

“I guess we lost a little focus. I can’t explain it,” Wright said of PCA’s woes in the middle innings. “We just kind of self-destructed. Just chalk it up to us being young and inexperienced, and not having a lot of playoff experience. We just buckled to the pressure. That’s the difference between a senior-laden team over there and a young team over here.”

PCA had several chances to stay in the game, but mental mistakes and bad breaks took them out of two innings.

Aaron Curry reached on an error to start the fourth and was erased on a line-drive double play. In the fifth, Chase Towne led off with a single and went to third on a basehit by Rush. A relay throw appeared to go into the PCA dugout, but apparently hit a pole or a player and landed in the dirt outside to prevent Towne from scoring.

Towne later scored on a bases-loaded walk to Wes Massey, but the play had taken some momentum out of the Eagles. Curry ended the fifth with a hard two-out grounder up the middle that was hit right at second baseman Gordon who was playing behind second base nearly the entire game.

“Sometimes the ball will bounce for you, and tonight it bounced our way,” Cooksey said. “Hopefully we’ll have the same outcome on Thursday.”