MACON — The Griffin Christian Crusaders baseball team fell behind early to the Stratford Academy Eagles Tuesday evening and couldn’t recover, losing to Stratford 13-3 in GISA Region 2-AAA action on the road.

Griffin Christian drops its seventh straight game to fall to 3-16 overall and 1-7 in region play while Stratford improves to 8-10, 4-4. With Stratford’s win, the Eagles clinch the fourth and final playoff spot in the region as fifth-place GC is three games back of Stratford with 2 region games left to play.

Stratford scored 4 in the first and 3 in the second to jump out to a 7-0 lead before GC scored 1 in the third. Stratford put a halt to any Crusaders momentum with 3 runs in the bottom of the third to go up 10-1, basically sealing the game. Stratford scored 2 in the fourth and 1 in the fifth while GC scored 2 in the fifth for the 13-3 final margin.

Jonathan Hammond had all 3 RBIs for the Crusaders. Hunter Ott pitched for GC, giving up 11 runs on 11 hits with 2 walks and no strikeouts.

The Crusaders continue GISA Region 2-AAA play Friday at 6 p.m. at Nix Field against No. 3 state-ranked Mount de Sales Academy.

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Atlanta South Knights 13, GC 3 (Monday): Griffin Christian lost to the Atlanta South Knights 13-3 Monday evening in non-region action at Nix Field to fall to 3-15 at the time.

GC scored 1 in the first, 1 in the third and 1 in the fifth. The Knights scored 2 in the first, 1 in the third, 1 in the fourth, 3 in the fifth, 2 in the sixth and 4 in the seventh.

Micah Mitchell started on the mound for the Crusaders and pitched 5 innings, giving up 7 runs.

Hunter Ott and Jonathan Hammond singled for the only two hits for GC. Jonathan Hammond scored two runs while Matthew Hammond, Jordan Harris and Ott each had RBIs in the contest.