This wasn’t what new Calhoun Community College baseball coach Jim Morrill had seen in his first eight games as the head of the Warhawks’ program.

Thursday afternoon, the Warhawks committed six errors and issued nine walks in dropping a 9-6 decision to Shelton State at the refurbished Calhoun baseball field.

“We didn’t deserve to win today,” Morrill said. “We didn’t play well.

“We had too many errors, and we walked too many batters. You can’t win like that.”

Morrill, however, views what went on Thursday as simply a bump in the road for the Warhawks, who are playing their first baseball season since 2001.

“This was just a loss,” he said. “We didn’t play well today, but you’re going to have days like that on a 56-game schedule.

“It would have been one thing if we had just played well and got beat, but we didn’t play well today.”

Calhoun (now 7-2) started strong.

Kevin Weidenbacher had a two-run single in a three-run second inning and former West Limestone High School standout Cole Mitchell singled in a run in the third for a 4-0 lead.

But Shelton state took advantage of two Calhoun errors to score three runs in the fourth and tied the game in the fifth with another unearned run.

In the sixth, two more Calhoun errors led to three more runs and a 7-4 lead for the visitors.

“The way things started, I thought this was going to be our day,” Morrill said. “We had one bad inning, and things just got worse from there.”

R.J. Thompson led off the second with a walk, and Matt Montgomery followed with a basehit to right field.

After Mitchell bunted both runners up, Kuyaunnis Miles walked to load the bases.

Chris Law reached on an error to score Thompson, and Weidenbacher’s single to right field gave Calhoun a 3-0 lead.

In the third, Thompson reached on an error with one out and scored on Mitchell’s single to center field a batter later.

Down 7-4 in the sixth, the Warhawks got doubles from Law and Bradley Ray to pull within two, 7-5.

But Shelton brought in side-arming reliever David Slovak, who struck out Brian Ellis and got Blake Forsyth to ground out and end the threat.

Drew Owens and Daniel Meek issured four walks in the ninth inning, and Shelton scored two runs to push its lead back to four, 9-5.

Calhoun got one run back on Mitchell’s RBI-single in the ninth, but Miles grounded out to end the game.

Montgomery, Mitchell, Law and Weidenbacher each had two hits in a 11-hit attack for Calhoun.

Shelton had but eight hits.

The Warhawks are next in action Saturday in Columbia, Tenn. for a 1 p.m. doubleheader with Columbia State.

Calhoun’s next home game is March 9 when it will entertain N.E. Mississippi Community College in a doubleheader beginning at noon.