Old hat for Woodlawn in state tournament

It’s the second week of May, and that usually means one thing for Woodlawn baseball Coach Tommy Richardson.

Nerves.

“It gets me every year,” said Richardson, who’s been coaching the Bears since 1994. “The more times you get to this point, the more you worry. And that always makes you a little more nervous each time.”

Whatever nerves Richardson has felt in the past have typically lasted for the duration of state tournament play, which begins today for all six classifications, and only subsides once his team has recorded their last out of their final game.

He doesn’t anticipate that pattern to change this year either, especially since his Bears are trying to win another state title.

Woodlawn (23-6) collected its eighth championship last year when it beat South Side Bee Branch — this year’s Class 3A tournament host — 5-2 in the final in Benton. Richardson believes it’ll be tough to duplicate what his Bears did in 2021, but the spot they’re in isn’t unfamiliar.

“We think we’re the team to beat,” he explained. “Going in as a three seed, but the kids kind of thought the sky was falling after we lost last Saturday to Murfreesboro. I was like, ‘hey dude, we won the game we needed to win.’ That, of course, was that first one. So now, we’ve got the same chance as everybody else.

“We’ve got a one in 16 shot like everyone.”

Richardson’s program is going to get everyone’s best shot, too, just because of how dominant they’ve been over the past two decades. That was evident this season, but the Bears continued to play the way they’ve been accustomed to playing under their long-tenured coach, which resulted in victories more times than not.

Woodlawn put together two separate seven-game winning streaks during the year, and of its six losses, five were to teams from higher classifications. The one-run defeat to Murfreesboro in the 2A South Regional semifinals last week was their first loss to a team from its own classification since 2019.

The Bears had to grind out wins as well by doing the things most teams inspire to do, according to Richardson. That, in turn, wasn’t always accomplished as consistently as he’d liked.

“When we beat the zone up on the mound, we’re pretty good,” he said. “There’s no defense for a walk, though. But when we throw strikes, we’ve done well. That allows us to get out of innings, and then we’re able to play a lot more offense and score more runs.

“The times when we struggle is when we don’t throw strikes, and that’s probably the key with everybody.”

The Bears have also played the majority of the season without its top player in Cale Edmonds. The senior, who was the Bears’ No. 1 pitcher and lead-off hitter, hurt his elbow in the second game of the year and hasn’t played since.

“He tore his UCL, tore the top ligament, tore everything,” Richardson said of his standout, who struck out nine over seven innings in last season’s state title game. “That really took the air out of everybody for a couple of weeks because we weren’t just losing a player, we were losing a leader as well. And we struggled throughout the year at times because we had to have guys fill roles that maybe they weren’t ready for yet. But that’s the way it had to be.

“Fortunately, it looks like we’re going to get him back for the tournament, and I’m so happy for him. Sometimes you have kids in high school that get hurt, and you don’t see them again. But Cale was at practice everyday despite not being able to do anything, was in the dugout during games. … He never disappeared.”

Edmonds’ return should instantly give the Bears a jolt going into their opening-round matchup with Conway St. Joseph (17-3). The Bulldogs have won four of their last five games, with their only slip occurring in the final of the 2A Central Regional to South Side Bee Branch.

“We’ve got to handle the nerves that we’re going to have,” Richardson said. “We’ve got to do the things that it takes to win, and that’s get timely hits and pitch well. Those are the things we’ve got to do.

“We had to do that this year, we’ll have to do it next year, and we had to do it 20 years ago. Simple formula, and we’ve just got to go out and do it if we want to have a chance to advance to the next round.”

“It gets me every year. The more times you get to this point, the more you worry. And that always makes you a little more nervous each time.” Woodlawn Coach Tommy Richardson