The Marian baseball team entered the week riding a six-game winning streak, during which it enforced the 10-run rule four times.

In the Colts' two Schuylkill League contests this week however, the shoe has been on the other foot.Monday night, Marian suffered its first Schuylkill League loss to Williams Valley.Yesterday, Tri-Valley handed Marian its second straight league loss, rolling to an 11-3 victory..After watching the Bulldogs drop their two previous games, coach Bob Felty was glad to see his team get back on track."The sign of a good team is how they bounce back from a tough loss," Felty said. "We lost the other night 2-1 (to Nativity) and today I thought our guys came out and played well."We got some bunts and solid hits. They also had a couple of misplays and we took advantage of them."Marian coach Jeff Nietz also talked about his team's problems defensively."Their aggressiveness on the base paths put us back on our heels and then we started throwing the ball around a little bit. You just can't do that against this team."After Colts' starting pitcher Drew Sherkness breezed through the first two innings, the visitors broke things open with a seven-run third inning.Tri-Valley combined three hits, four walks, two errors, and a pair of wild pitches to plate its runs.The Bulldogs made it a 9-1 game in the fourth when Matt McGinley delivered a two-run single to plate both Sammy Spickler and Tanner Troutman, who both singled earlier that inning.Marian, which scored a total of 67 runs during its winning streak, struggled offensively for the second straight game.Marian did get a two-run, sixth inning home run from Sherkness for the second straight game. On Monday, his blast accounted for all of the Colts' runs against Williams Valley. Wednesday, his shot produced most of the offense against Tri-Valley."It's one of those things that we scored so many runs so easily the first couple of weeks. The last couple of games it has been tough scraping," Neitz said. "Again, we're getting guys on and we're not taking advantage of what we have."I felt real good that second inning when we were scratching and got the run and I thought we could put some pressure on them. But, we just didn't get enough pressure on them when we needed to."Marian is now 6-3 overall and 5-2 in league play."We told our kids the easier part of their schedule was at the beginning of the season," Nietz said. "Now, we will see how good we really are this second half. We told them you're not as good as your scores indicate. We still have a lot of work to do. We look at it as it's only the first half of the season. Right now, we're sitting in third place tied with these guys (Tri-Valley). If we hand Nativity a loss Friday, then it's Williams Valley in first, and all of us tied for second. Then, we start that second half swing."We looked at last year. Other than Naitivity, we didn't get swept by anybody. We split with these guys and Williams Valley. That's why we play the two halves. We'll come out again. We'll work between now and then and rebound."Scott Nietz had two hits and Sherkness had the homer and two RBIs for the Colts.Tri-Valley 007 200 2 - 11 10 1Marian 010 002 0 - 3 6 3Wert and Antz; Sherkness, Stravinsky (4), McGowan (6) and Stawick. W - Wert. L - Sherkness. HR: TV - none; Marian - Sherkness (6th, one on).