The El Reno High School baseball team faced three opponents in the opening rounds of the Chickasha Tournament which began Wednesday, dropping two close matches and suffering one big loss.

The Indians are currently playing without sophomore Justin Ferguson, who was diagnosed with a blood clot in his clavicle. He has spent time in intensive care, but is expected to make a full recovery, head coach Mark Ward said.

“Our guys have had their heads down a little because of what’s going on with Justin. It’s definitely affected us,” he said.

Ferguson is expected to return home Monday. After an unsuccessful pair of games against the Guthrie Bluejays — games they lost 4-2 and 4-3 — the Tribe threw their opening games with the bottom of their pitching rotation.

“We used three of our top four pitchers in the series with Guthrie, so we were down in our rotation some when we went into the Lawton Ike game,” Ward said.

The Indians fell behind 5-0 early in Wednesday’s early game with the Eagles.

They rallied late in the game and mustered four runs in the top of the sixth inning to tie the game at 5-5. In the bottom of the inning, Ike scored a runner from second on a two-out single, giving them a one-point edge.

The game was called at the end of the sixth inning on account of time.

“I know that in tournaments they have to do things like that for time, but this was just another game where we were one pitch or one play away from a win. We’ve been a little bit snake-bit, having lost seven one-run games,” Ward said.

Lorenzo Robinson took the loss and threw all six innings.

“Robinson threw well enough not to deserve a loss in that game. This was not a reflection of where our pitching is right now,” he said.

Ward said defensively his team is still ahead of where he thought they would be at this point in the season, particularly his pitching staff.

“Offensively, we’ve struggled. It just seems like we’re seeing everybody’s best pitcher,” he said.

The Indians followed the Lawton Ike game with a 14-1 loss to the Anadarko Warriors.

“We had an unlucky matchup. They were throwing their number one guy and we were throwing our number five guy. That far down in our lineup we haven’t been able to give them enough time to grow in their role,” he said.

Anadarko earned five early runs which set the tone of the game, Ward said.

“With the exception of this Anadarko game, and our Collinsville game, we haven’t given up more than six runs in any game,” he said.

“This was really a team loss.”

Senior Clint Maune tossed the Indians’ final game of the tournament, a 3-1 loss to the Leedey Bison Friday in Anadarko.

Leedey 3, El Reno 1

In his past 13 innings of work, Maune has given up only three runs, but has lost both games by one run, Ward said.

“These losses are a reflection of where we are offensively. We haven’t been able to find a way to score enough runs against good pitching. We need to use the bunt game more effectively and execute when we get guys in the scoring position,” he said.

“In two of our last three games, we had tying or winning runs on base in those games, but couldn't get them across the plate.”

Excluding the Anadarko and Collinsville games, the Indians are averaging 3.5 runs allowed per game and were only winning half of their games.

“It’s amazing to me that you're only giving up that many runs, but still only .500,” Ward said.

“We are going to have to keep working out our problems at the plate.”

Ward said his team is dealing with discouragement, but showing signs of improvement.

“We have our heads down a little, but our team is still playing very hard and we know we'll start putting wins together,” he said.

The team will travel to Shawnee Monday and Durant Thursday for tournament play. They will return home April 11 to face Chickasha.