STEENS — History sometimes has its fair share of potholes that make navigating the road to success a little tricky.
The Columbus Christian Academy baseball team encountered one of those obstacles Tuesday night in a 15-0 loss to Benton Academy in Game 1 of its Mississippi Association of Independent Schools Class A playoff series.
The record will show that Dawson Shaw, LaQuinston Sharp, RJ Deloach, and BJ Shirley had hits for the Rams (11-6), who will try to keep their season alive at 5 p.m. Thursday in Game 2 of the best-of-three series in Benton. If needed, Game 3 would follow approximately 30 minutes after Game 2.
But the fact that Columbus Christian has 11 wins this season, which is nearly its total for the past three or four seasons, is the accomplishment people will remember for much longer than who had hits in a Game 1 loss. In fact, Columbus Christian finished second to Hebron Christian in the regular season to earn the right to play host to its first ever playoff game Tuesday night. That it came against a Benton Academy team that is one of the strongest in Class A didn’t matter to Columbus Christian first-year coach Jared Garrett. It also didn’t matter that the Rams had amassed 11 wins to mirror what the program had accomplished in multiple seasons under several different coaches.
Instead, Garrett, who was an assistant baseball coach to Jeffrey Cook last season at Columbus High School, cared more about the fact that his players believe.
“It has been tough, for sure, but it has been fun,” Garrett said. “I came out here and asked the players to give me a chance, and that is exactly what they have done. … I can’t be disappointed with their effort. They have given me everything that I have asked for. I told them to trust me and to play hard, and that is exactly what they have done.”
Garrett also works with head coach Greg Watkins as an assistant coach on the school’s varsity football team and as the school’s junior varsity football coach. He accepted a position at Columbus Christian last August after completing his student teaching at Columbus High and Franklin Academy in Columbus. A former baseball and football player at New Hope High, Garrett graduated from Mississippi State last May. He said a victory against Pickens Academy (Ala.) in a doubleheader at the start of the season helped set the tone for what has been a history-making season.
“It has been tough trying to get them to accept the fact that they are good and they can be good, but as we have gone through the season they have seen they can be successful,” Garrett said. “Their confidence has built off that.”
Garrett said he has tried to encourage the players to work hard so they can improve individually and collectively. He said he has tried to do his part by working hard to maintain the school’s baseball field. The time Garrett and his players have invested in manicuring the field is noticeable, as is the improvement the team has made on the field.
Watkins, who also is the school’s athletic director, praised Garrett for his hard work on improving the field. He said the same hard work has translated to the field, where the baseball team is the latest in a line of history-making programs at the school. Earlier this year, the school’s boys soccer team played in and won its first match. The football team also won its first district title and played host to its first home football game. The boys basketball team also continued its run of success by beating Hebron Christian 63-42 in the championship game of the MAIS Class 1A North Central tournament.
“I think last year making the playoffs in football brought some confidence in,” Watkins said. “I think that confidence started feeding off onto new kids who came in and a lot of the ones who were here. Every sport we came out with the expectation of not just making the playoffs, but also winning district. It has fed through all sports.
“Coach Garrett is real energetic. He has done a lot of work getting the field looking real good. When the kids see that and the interest and the hard work you’re putting in just on the field, they are going to work hard for you.”
Garrett said he didn’t know anything about Columbus Christian’s baseball past. He also said he didn’t care that the program didn’t have any “tradition” because he likes a challenge and he was focused on carrying over the confidence many of his multi-sport athletes earned in other sports to the baseball field.
“I knew if I gave it my all and they gave it their all we could be successful,” Garrett said. “I don’t think a lot of people who start out coaching expect to do something like we have done, but I can’t take the credit for that. If the kids didn’t give the effort that they have all year, we wouldn’t be where we are now. I have pushed them. We have practiced a lot more this year, but it has nothing to do with me. It is all the kids.”
Columbus Christian senior KC Cunningham, who started Tuesday’s game and suffered the loss, praised Garrett for his work in helping reverse the program’s fortunes. Watkins joked that Cunningham, who has been an integral member of the school’s football and basketball teams, has been at the school so long that opposing coaches think he already graduated. Cunningham has been around long enough to see plenty of lean years on the diamond, which has made this season even more special.
“Our senior class has been through a lot, not winning much in past years,” Cunningham said. “Now to be upperclassmen and to be the first ones at CCA to start a tradition of going to the playoffs in every sport is a pretty big deal. You can thank our senior class for all of the heart we have put in and trying to get these guys to see if you put in a little bit of hard work you will see what you get.”
Follow Dispatch sports editor Adam Minichino on Twitter @ctsportseditor
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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