KOSCIUSKO — Senior catcher Houston Mims had no idea what was in his store for his final season playing baseball at Caledonia High School.
He knew a small, close-knit group of seniors would have to lead and that several young players would have to make major contributions to give the team a chance.
Turns out the ride was better than expected.
That run for the Caledonia seniors and coach John Wilson came to an end Monday night with a 9-5 loss to Kosciusko in Game 3 of a second-round Mississippi High School Activities Association (MHSAA) Class 4A playoff series.
“The season was an incredible experience,” Mims said. “It was so much more than I really expected. We competed and played hard. I had some really great times with all of these guys and care about them a lot. (There are) a lot of young guys on this team. They will be ready for a great season next year.”
Mims and classmates Seth Brown, Sawyer Brown, and Hunter McMurphey won’t be back next season. The Confederates also won’t have Wilson, the longtime coach who announced earlier in the season he will retire at the end of the school year.
“Really don’t have anything to say because I am done now,” Wilson said. “This team overachieved this year. There were 14 ninth- and 10th-graders on the team. That’s a huge number. We overcame a lot this year. I am proud of what this team accomplished. It all turned out better than we probably thought it would when the season started.”
Caledonia finished 16-13, including a first-round playoff series win over Yazoo City. The Confederates even stole home-field advantage with a 2-1 win to start this series Friday night at Kosciusko.
The good fortune ran out from there. Kosciusko evened the series with a 4-3 win Saturday at Caledonia, and led comfortably for most of the rubber match.
On Monday, Caledonia had 15 runners (nine by hit, five by walk, and another by error) through the first six innings but scored only two runs.
“Just lots and lots of opportunities,” Mims said. “We left the bases loaded several times (in the 2-1 win Friday). We knew we couldn’t afford to do that again if we expected to win the series. We are a pretty good offensive team, so we knew we would have some chances. We didn’t capitalize early, and that really set the tone for the game.”
Caledonia also lost three runners on the bases. Westlee Honeycutt was thrown out trying to stretch a single to a double. Tony Brooks was thrown out at home trying to score on a wild pitch. Cade Stacy was picked off between first and second base.
Mix those outs on the bases with five infield errors and it made for an uphill climb for the Confederates.
“We just made some mistakes,” Mims said. “If you look back over the season, that was the story of our season — just a lot of ups and downs. We had some games where we were perfect. Other nights, we made mistakes. We usually hit the ball well enough to make up for the shortcomings. In this series, we just left too many people on base. We couldn’t get hit after hit, like we needed to.”
Kosciusko (16-13) scored four times in the third to build a 5-0 lead. The Whippets took advantage of two errors in the frame.
A two-run double by Clark Dean highlighted a three-run fifth as the Whippets ran the lead to 8-1. Dean hit a double to start the big third inning as well, but he could have been retired on a strong putout attempt from the Caledonia outfield but the ball was dropped at third base.
In the seventh, Caledonia scored three times. Honeycutt fisted a popup to shallow right field with the bases loaded to end the game. Mims had extended it with an RBI single.
“We kept competing,” Wilson said. “That’s the biggest thing about this team. Even when things did not go well, they kept competing.”
Mims, Sawyer Brown, and Tyler McAdams had multiple hits in a 10-hit attack for Caledonia.
For Mims, it was his second hit of the night. In the sixth, he hit a massive fly ball to left center. When the ball disappeared into the night air, it appeared to have cleared the fence for a home run. Instead, it clanked off the top of the wall and landed in play for a double.
That hit also drove in a run. However, it also epitomized the night.
“We were close on a lot of occasions,” Mims said. “We just didn’t do enough to get the job done.”
Follow Dispatch sports writer Scott Walters on Twitter @dispatchscott
Scott was sports editor for The Dispatch.
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