With the playoffs fast approaching, the Liberty Christian baseball team is clicking on all cylinders.The Eagles dispatched their latest opponent, Eagle Ridge of Cape Girardeau, 26-0 on Friday to improve to 8-1.They will enter the Missouri State Christian Schools Athletic Association Tournament next Thursday as one of the favorites to win the title. Assistant Coach Ron Dickson says that’s a huge accomplishment for a program that started abruptly last season.“It’s almost night and day difference from where we were a year ago,” said Dickson. “We have stepped in with some of the programs that have been around for several years and competed well.”Liberty Christian is benefiting from more depth and experience this season, guided primarly by two pitchers.Sophomore Jake Pietzman is 3-0 as a starter, while senior Tanner Meyer has gone 2-1.“Overall our pitching has been pretty good,” said Dickson. “They have both pitched around a lot of errors and not given up runs in a lot of situations.”Eighth-grader Andrew Voss and junior Kameron Bagby have both also won as starters.“They have been great pitching around mistakes,” said Dickson.He says the errors have been the Eagles’ biggest bugaboo.“Against some of the better teams they resulted in runs,” said Dickson. “Our focus in practice has been getting better on defense. Most of our errors have been in the outfield and a lot of that comes from repition of being able to read the ball off the bat.”The Eagles have been strong at the plate throughout the season, led by a pair of brothers.“That’s a part of our game that has relatively been consistent,” said Dickson. “We’ve had quite a few kids come up with big hits at different times.”Kaleb Bagby is batting .440 with 14 RBIs, while Kameron Bagby is hitting .435 with 15 RBIs.Pietzman is carrying a .387 average at the plate, while freshman Logan Hart raised his average to .385 with a stellar showing on Friday.“He’s hitting the ball hard,” said Dickson. “He’s been solid all year with his bat.”Additionally, Meyer is yet to strike out this season.Dickson says underclassmen have provided a punch for the Eagles.“We’ve had some younger kids step up and make some plays like Josh Summers,” said Dickson. “He might find himself in a starting role if he continues to play defensively at the level he’s been playing.”Dickson says the team has performed at the level the coaches had anticipated, minus the hiccup against Crosspoint Christian.“Our expectations were to be about where we are,” said Dickson. “The game that we lost we didn’t play well enough to win. We had a chance at the end and had a lot of errors and base running mistakes.”Liberty Christian is expecting to land a Top 3 seed in the state tournament.EAGLES READY FOR STATEDerrick Forsythe photo.