The Spalding Jaguars baseball team, the 2009 Region 4-AAA champions, found out very quickly that last year was just that — in the past. A 9-8 season-opening home loss to Upson-Lee on Feb. 26 showed Spalding that it would have to work much harder to stay on top. Last year, the Jags crushed Upson-Lee 13-1 in their home opener en route to a 21-6 season that concluded with a trip to the second round of the Class AAA state playoffs.

“Our loss to Upson-Lee this year was a reality check,” said Jags senior catcher Patrick “Pat-Pat” Gasses. “That game showed us that we just can’t rest on our laurels as region champs.”

“We do have that bullseye on our backs this year,” said sophomore shortstop Casey Moody. “We have to be ready every time out.”

And it looks like the Jags have done their best to be ready since the Upson-Lee game. The team traveled to Washington County for the second straight year to participate in their tournament and swept both teams it faced, defeating WaCo 7-1 on March 5 and outlasting Vidalia 10-7 the next day. The Jags started Region 4-AAA play with a 7-1 win over Locust Grove Monday to push their record to 3-1 overall, 1-0 in region action.

Mother Nature has put a momentary halt to the Jags region play, postponing games against region foes Jackson High and South Atlanta this past week due to heavy rainfall. If the weather holds up, Spalding will host Jackson today in a makeup game at 6 p.m.

The Jags as a team aren’t fazed by the rain delays this week — in fact, they actually found the silver lining in all the dark clouds that have been over Spalding County this week.

“I don’t mind the rain. It gives us more time to work on things that we need to fix,” Gasses said.

“Weather delays allow us to get the little things down,” said sophomore outfielder Michael Martin. “We have time on our hands to get the work in and get better.”

Several of the players said they have a few things to work on, particularly on the pitching side. To a man, they all said they have to “pound the strike zone” when they are on the mound.

“As pitchers, we have to be mentally focused on the mound,” said junior Dylan Griffin, who helped put the Locust Grove game out of reach with a two-run home run to deep center.

Senior Josh Seigler said the team has to be “mentally focused on our next task at all times.”

“We have got to work on our tempo on the mound,” said Moody, who also pitches. “When I say tempo, I mean getting into a rhythm where we as pitchers get the ball back to the catcher, which can speed the game up.”

That would be a good thing for Spalding, since they have been in a couple of long games.

The Upson-Lee game lasted for four hours due to a bevy of walks, bad pitches and pitching changes on both sides.

“We didn’t pitch very well, but we did hit well off Upson-Lee in spurts. Now when you get hits in spurts, that prolongs the game as well,” said Jags head coach Mickey Moody. “That was the case for both teams in that game.”

Moody said he’s glad the team is playing well since Upson-Lee but he is not looking too far ahead.

“Right now, we’re 1-0 in the region,” he said. “Our job is just to get to 2-0.”