OAKLEAF - In Friday afternoon second-day action at the Oakleaf Tournament of Champions, the host Oakleaf Knights faced the scrappy 7-1 Class 3A Baldwin Indians. The Knights had trouble early as the Indians put on runs right out of the box in the top of the first inning, 3-0.

“We came out and we fought late,” said Oakleaf first-year coach Heather Han. “They put it to us early and stacked some runs up on us. We made some defensive errors, some pretty uncharacteristic defensive errors, a couple of bad throws, and didn’t keep our feet moving.

Oakleaf had nothing for the Indians through four innings. Baldwin, who came to Oakleaf unbeaten, lost 4-3 in day one action to Baker County whom Oakleaf beat 4-1 on day two with three first inning runs, continued their run through the first three innings adding two more runs in the second, and two more in the third to open a 7-0 lead through the top of the fifth. The Knights found their mojo late with three runs in the bottom of the fifth inning which was highlighted by a Khloe Banks deep center home run, 7-3.

“Khloe did her job, scored us a couple runs there late,” said Han.

In the final stanza, Baldwin added one more to go ahead 8-3 with the Knights final at bat coming up.

“Baldwin is no pushover,” said Han. “They are a very good hitting team, their pitching does very well, they are a very good team and they should do very well this season.”

Oakleaf added two more runs and had the tying run on base before the Indians ended the party with a 8-5 defeat. “I’m proud for our kids coming back and fighting.”

“We did our best to fight back,” said Han. “On Monday, we work on cashing in runners and making adjustments quicker. We are definitely going to do some scrimmage stuff and work inside/outside, making adjustments at the plate and cashing in runners. Back to the grindstone.”

Against Baker County, Ciara Gibson had two hits; one a home run, the other a triple.

Oakleaf has lost twice to Baldwin with a 4-1 loss in the season opener.