The Raiders were eliminated from the district softball playoffs by Milton last Tuesday, falling 1-0. The Raiders entered the first round of the district playoff at Niceville as an underdog. They were riding a three-game losing streak and had lost twice during the season to Milton. However, those losses were by two runs and one run and the Raiders were a confident bunch before the first pitch.
This up-and-down regular season came to a difficult close Thursday night for Navarre’s varsity baseball team, and it ended with another trip down the hill, the Raiders unable to come up with an answer for rival Gulf Breeze in a 12-3 road loss.
Barry Larkin has watched the team he spent his entire major league career with struggle. The Cincinnati Reds have been one of the worst teams in baseball lately, losing 90-plus games each of the past three seasons, and that hasn’t been easy for Larkin, a roving hitting instructor for the Reds who takes pride in being connected to the franchise he became a star with, where he won a World Series.
For someone like Shaun Parcher, an athlete who has always been in that close but not quite category when it comes to track, getting to the regional is a big deal.
Austin Tebo couldn’t have asked for a better way for senior night to play out. He and fellow Navarre seniors Cade Taylor and Ryan Cocker went out winners in the final regular-season district game of their careers, the Raiders knocking off Crestview 5-1 Friday night.
Going into the district playoffs, the Raiders will be fighting to end a three-game losing streak. They are getting great pitching and timely hitting. However, the defense, one of the team’s strong points, has recently lacked consistency. The Raiders lost three games this past week, all by one run. Errors have been the difference between a win and a loss.
