The postseason road will continue for three Lowndes County teams if Mother Nature cooperates.
The New Hope High School baseball and fast-pitch teams and the Caledonia High baseball teams hope to kick off their Mississippi High School Activities Association Class 5A and Class 4 North State playoffs series today, but weather forecasts list 50- to 60-percent chances of rain in the area and most of the state. The chances for clear skies don’t get much better Friday, as forecasts call for a 90-percent chance of rain.
As of Wednesday night, though, New Hope baseball and softball coach Lee Boyd and Tabitha Beard and Caledonia coach John Wilson were preparing their teams for road trips. The New Hope boys are scheduled to play at 4 p.m. today at Yazoo City, while the New Hope girls are slated to play at 5 p.m. today against McComb. Caledonia is scheduled to play at 7 tonight against Lewisburg. All of the matchups are game one of the best-of-three series. Game two of the baseball series are series are scheduled for Friday. Game two and a game three, if needed, in the softball series is scheduled for 2 p.m. Saturday in Columbus.
All three teams hope to build on the momentum of their first postseason action. The New Hope baseball team is coming off 12-2 and 14-4 victories against Lake Cormorant. The Trojans (19-7) needed only 10 1/2 innings to earn the sweep.
“We kind of struggled really bad in the last two weeks of the season on and off,” Boyd said. “Last weekend gave us a lot of confidence, especially offensively. We had three good days of practice, so I hope it will carry over.”
New Hope lost to Amory, Northridge (Ala.), and Columbus in the final weeks of the regular season. Even though the Trojans struggled to find their rhythm at the plate late in the season, Boyd hopes the strong showing up and down the lineup in the past two games is a sign of good things to come. He pointed to the contributions of senior Austin Oswalt, who missed three weeks earlier in the season, and the hard work by Parker Earhart, Jake Hollis, and J.C. Redden at the bottom of the order. Coupled with a table-setter like Will Golsan, Boyd hopes the rest of the Trojans can find their strokes and deliver for the rest of the season.
“We know what we’re capable of doing and we don’t feel like we have put it together,” Boyd said. “We have played some good games from top to bottom, but some guys have struggled at times and I know are better hitters. A few pitchers have struggled lately, but we know what they are capable of doing. We know we have some guys who are capable of putting up some big numbers. We know if that comes around we can be a tough team to beat.”
Boyd also likes how his pitching staff sets up. He said New Hope will go with Redden today and then see how the weather affects the schedule. In the preseason, Boyd wasn’t sure how big of a role Redden was going to play, but he said the junior has emerged as a consistent performer.
“He just loves baseball,” Boyd said of Redden. “He knew this was going to be his junior year, and he plays travel ball. Last year, he had arm issues and he didn’t throw as much. He gained some velocity thanks to a long-toss program and is so competitive. He throws a lot harder than you would expect for someone who is his size, but his breaking ball has improved and he has worked hard to get his changeup down pat for his third pitch. We what like about him is he is such a competitor. If he keeps that under control, that is when it works best for him.”
Like Boyd, Wilson hopes his team can show the consistency in all facets of the game to keep its season alive. The Confederates (24-6) have won seven games in row, including a sweep of Indianola Gentry last weekend. Caledonia rolled to 10-0 and 18-1 victories in mercy-rule games that Wilson said gave some of his younger players a chance to play. He expects a tougher challenge in the first round.
“We have had several games where we have played really well,” Wilson said. “We just have to be more consistent. We need to be consistent in all three things (pitching, hitting, and fielding).”
Last year, Caledonia defeated Itawamba Agricultural in three games in the first round and lost to Cleveland in three games in the second round. This season, Wilson said balance up and down the lineup and depth in the pitching staff have been keys. He said the players also responded to something he told them late in the season.
“I told them some of the coaches had said all teams need to do is get ahead of them and they’re finished,” Wilson said. “I think (part of our success late in the season) was them proving a point that that isn’t true.”
Caledonia scored two runs in the sixth inning and three in the seventh in a 5-4 victory against Lamar County (Ala.) on April 16. It scored five runs in the seventh and two in the eighth in a 7-6 victory against Columbus on April 19. Caledonia also scored two runs in the sixth and one in the seventh in a 6-5 victory against West Point on April 20. It closed the regular season with a 7-0 victory against Hamilton.
Wilson said Caledonia will go with Ryan Unruh in game one and Caleb Brown in game two. He said Chase Farris likely will pitch game three.
Pitching rotations matter less in softball, where Beard has one of the state’s best one-two punches in senior Lauren Holifield and junior D.J. Sanders. The two right-handers give New Hope (24-1) plenty of experience as it prepares for a five-plus hour bus ride today to take on McComb. Beard said Wednesday night that the team planned to leave at 9 a.m. today to give it enough time to eat, to stretch, and to take batting practice. Still, she admits the long bus ride will be a concern.
A bigger concern for Beard will be getting the Lady Trojans to play to the level she expects. She was unhappy Friday following a 17-1 series-clinching victory against Oxford in Columbus. Beard felt the Lady Trojans didn’t do the little things defensively and at the plate that they will need to go as they move deeper into the playoffs.
“When we play a team we know we are a lot better than we seem to really lose focus,” Beard said. “I want them to play with the intensity they play with against teams like Neshoba Central every game. I understand that is very hard to do and very draining at times, but that is what I expect. That is what I try to make them understand that there is no switch, and that if you don’t play and practice with that intensity and focus there is going to come a time when you really need it and it is not going to be there.”
Beard said New Hope spent the past few practices fine-tuning that focus. She said the maturity of this season’s team (four seniors and four juniors who start) has helped the team address things individuals need to work on in practice. She hopes that will pay off today after a long bus ride that could knock a lesser experienced team off its game.
“It all is going to come down making them earn everything they get,” Beard said. “That has been something we focused on this season. If a team has to earn every run and we don’t give them small things and don’t give them errors we’re pretty tough to beat. … If they play how they’re supposed to play and don’t give McComb things we should be fine.”
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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