The Soo Cambrian Mazda Midget Black Sox learned an early season lesson on Friday afternoon.
Plagued by several errors both mentally and physically, the Black Sox surrendered a 5-1 lead and fell 8-6 to the Petosky Indians in the opening game of the annual Coca Cola Classic Invitational Baseball Tournament at Sinclair Yards.
Although head coach Mike Lebel realizes that physical errors are a part of the game, he feels that his team will have to eliminate the mental errors in order to be successful at this level.
"We're all going to make physical errors but we made half a dozen mental errors like missing signs. We have to clean that up in order to be successful at this level," said Lebel.
After the Black Sox built a 5-1 lead against a tough pitcher through four innings thanks in large part to a masterful pitching performance by starting pitcher Tyler Binkley, the Indians jumped all over the Black Sox relief in the fifth inning.
"We're very happy with the effort that Binkley gave us. He pitched very well and we are very happy with that kind of performance at this stage. He worked four solid innings and gave us a four run lead to work with," added Lebel.
Petosky started a five run fifth inning rally with a leadoff walk to the number nine hitter in the lineup. Add four hits and an error and the Indians found themselves ahead 6-5.
Petosky added another run in each of the sixth and seventh innings while the locals added one in an attempted rally the seventh inning.
Through four innings and 52 pitches of work, Binkley gave up just two hits while striking out two and walking one. Offensively, Adam Carricato led the Sox with a double and a single.
The Black Sox return to action on Saturday at 10:30 a.m. against Marquette before closing the round robin at 6 p.m. against Gladwin.
With Alpena dropping out of the tournament on Thursday night, organizers were forced to quickly redraft the schedule.
The tournament will now feature a playoff round on Sunday. The fist place team will meet the fourth in one semi-final at 9 a.m. while second and third meet at 11:30 p.m. The winners will advance to the championship game at 2 p.m.