TRION, Ga. - Part of Mike Dunfee just wanted his baseball team to survive the week. The more ambitious part of the Gordon Lee coach wanted much more.
So far, Ambitious Mike is doing all right. The Trojans outlasted rival on Trion on Wednesday night, 13-7, the team's third win in three days and a strong start to a week that still has two more games to come.
"We played really well Tuesday against Walker (11-1 win), but we didn't have that consistency tonight at the start," Dunfee said. "Pitching and defense have been keeping us in games so far this year, but tonight that wasn't the case. Tonight it was discipline at the plate and swinging at our pitches and doing the little things right at the plate that carried us.
"This is a big week for us with five games, four of them in the region. If we complete what we started, it will be a very nice week for us."
Gordon Lee (10-4, 5-2 in Region 6-A) trailed 3-0 after the first inning and 7-3 after four as the Bulldogs (9-4, 3-3) used RBI singles by Donald Morgan and Kingston Lanier and Body Brown's fourth-inning two-run double to chase Trojans' starter Branton Phillips.
The lead didn't last long as Gordon Lee, which scored its first three runs without getting a hit, used three walks and two two-out errors to tie the game in the fifth. The Trojans then scored three in the sixth on two more errors, Cody Wilson's infield RBI single and Klay Durham's RBI groundout, and three more in the seventh, with Conner Coakley's RBI double the key hit.
The runs held up due to the strong relief effort of junior Daniel Brooks, who joined the team late after the school's basketball team reached the playoffs. Brooks came on to start the fifth inning and faced one batter over the minimum (a hit batter) over the final three innings, striking out seven.
He also impressed his coach, who put out a call to arms during this busy week.
"I love that kid's work ethic and his personality, but he hadn't thrown much so I wasn't sure what to expect," Dunfee said. "I like what I saw and we really needed it."
Brooks, like his coach, sees this week as a big opportunity.
"Coach told us that this is the week Gordon Lee baseball comes back, so we want to prove him right," Brooks said. "It's tough to play three games in a row, but we fought through it. It wasn't pretty, but it was a win."