Phoenix begin year with four straight wins
Sonoraville sweeps Coosa, walks-off Calhoun and wallops Adairsville in first week
The undefeated and state-ranked Sonoraville High School baseball team could not have asked for a better start to the season.
The team, which was sitting in the tenth spot in the initial Top 10 GHSA state 4A rankings this winter, played four games last week and won them all.
That puts them a perfect 4-0 heading into this week’s three-game series with Rome, which is a dress rehearsal for the Phoenix regarding how the Region 7-4A schedule will be played with the teams playing a single game Tuesday night and then a doubleheader Friday night at Sonoraville when ceremonies for their new field are scheduled before the 5:00 p.m. first pitch.
“We’re using these games against Rome as a practice week to see how we handle the same schedule we’ll be playing in Region with one game and then a doubleheader at the end,” Sonoraville head baseball coach Deron Walraven said. “So we decided to play each other this week three games, under that same schedule. We want to look at our pitching and all of that, so I think it’s great that we’re doing this because the Region games will be here before you know it and we need to know how we want to be able to handle that type of schedule, with a doubleheader every week, with our players.”
He said getting to play four times last week and winning them all was everything they were hoping for.
“We had a good week,” Walraven said. “I was really proud of the kids for the way they played and the way they competed and for the way they just battled. We felt like we were really lucky with the weather that we were able to get the games in and then to go out there and play four good ballgames, it was everything we wanted.”
They began the season with a sweep of Coosa, taking a pair of home games from the Eagles after the weather in
Rome Thursday changed their plans from a home-andaway series to two games in Sonoraville. They beat the Eagles, 4-1, last Monday in their season opener and then came back Thursday to take them 9-5 and start a stretch of three games in three days.
They remained at home Friday night to get their biggest win of the year so far with a dramatic walk-off 3-2 rally over neighboring Calhoun when the Phoenix scored two runs in the bottom of the seventh to erase a 2-1 deficit.
And about 15 hours after that victory, the bats came alive with 15 hits and 10 runs in a 10-3 win over former Region 6-3A rival Adairsville in Bartow County.
“We really didn’t hit the ball like we had hoped in those first three games, but we really brought the bats on Saturday against Adairsville,” Walraven said. “But it really exactly the way we had hoped to start the year. We got good pitching all week. I know we’ll get the bats going consistently the way we want to, so it was a good start for us.”
In their first win over Coosa, three Sonoraville pitchers combined for 19 strikeouts against the Eagles as senior Zach Lyles, junior left A.J. Hensley, and junior Jaxon Pate also allowed just one hit.
“We split the pitching up because we wanted to give a few guys some work and those guys did a great job,” Walraven said. “It was a very clean game. When the other team only puts two balls in play for outs, you know your pitching is doing its job.”
The Phoenix tallied three runs in the bottom of the first inning and then added another in the fifth to complete its scoring. Coosa would notch its lone run in the top of the fourth inning.
Lyles went three innings and got all of his outs with strikeouts. England threw three innings and he finished with seven K’s and Pate worked a 1-2-3 seventh with all three of his outs on ring-em-ups.
The same two teams met for the second time Thursday and again at Sonoraville, and the Phoenix used a fourrun first inning and then the pitching of junior Ty Brown and freshman Griffin Long to sweep the Eagles.
“Ty and Griffin were both making their varsity pitching debuts and they did a great job,” Walraven said. “I know Ty was nervous because it was his first start, but he threw the ball well and Griffin is one of the freshmen that we really like that we’re going to run out there and he did a good job. You never know what a kid is going to do making his first start and you never know about a freshman out there for a first time either, but I was very pleased with how both of them played.”
Lyles and Brock Clements each hit home runs in the win.
That set up their showdown with Calhoun on Friday and after trailing from the very start, they pulled out a huge win at the very end.
“The kids just never stopped believing we were going to get it done,” Walraven said. “It was muddy, but the conditions were that way for both teams. We pushed the game back an hour to 6:30 and got the tarps on the field because it was raining. And then it stopped raining and we got the tarps off and as soon as Calhoun got ready to bat, it started raining again. But I know it felt good to be able to get the game in and get it played. And it also felt good to get the win.”
The Yellow Jackets scored a run in the top of the first to go up 1-0 and then added one more to lead 2-0 before Sonoraville got on the board in the bottom of the sixth with a Lyles RBI double. They would then win it with a Pate two-run walk-off hit in the bottom of the seventh.
Lyles was the starting and winning pitcher for the Phoenix, throwing five innings of no-hit baseball before Pate came on in relief and worked the final two innings for the victory.
“I got to give the kids all the credit in the world,” Walraven said. “We were just able to come up with the big hit a couple of times when needed it. And I give the hitters in front of them credit for getting on base and giving those guys a chance to drive them in. But when Jaxon got the hit and we scored the run that won it, it got a little crazy after that.”
Senior infielder Zevyn Ferguson aided the win with two hits for the Phoenix.
Then on Saturday, they put together another big effort to make it a 4-for-4 week.
Lyles got the offensive party started with a grand
slam home run in the second inning and the Phoenix just added to that lead as the game went along to stand unbeaten to start this week.
Hensley got his first pitching start of the season and he worked the first threeand-a-third innings before he was relieved by freshman Eli Balliew, who finished the game.
“We played really well,” Walraven said. “I told the guys before the game that good teams don’t have a letdown after emotional wins, like the one we had Friday night against Calhoun. It really wasn’t too long after that game ended that we were back on the field at Adairsville Saturday and so it might have been easy for the guys to just say, ‘oh we got three wins this week and we beat Calhoun, so we’re good’, but the guys were ready to play. There was no letdown.
“We swung the bats really well with 15 hits and Adairsville’s a good team. They got a lot of returning starters and we were without Jaxon, who had the big hit on Friday, because he was in the basketball playoff game, so we were missing one of our starters, but the guys that filled in did a great job. I thought both of our pitchers did a great job and Eli’s one of our freshman that we really like and are going to use. So it was the perfect way to end what was a very good week of baseball for us.”
Fergus had his second consecutive two-hit game for the Phoenix and Lyles later added a triple to go with his home run and after that he was intentionally walked two straight times. Senior Jackson Balliew, and England also had two-hit performances for the Phoenix.
After their three games against Rome this week, the team will stay at home next Monday for a non-Region contest against Woodland.