Ringgold must win today after split with Redan
RINGGOLD, Ga. — It is normal, even routine, for the Ringgold Tigers to hold a postgame skull session in the outfield to kick around the pros and cons of the game just played. But when coach Brent Tucker takes the proceedings inside, it’s not to celebrate.
The Tigers faced a lengthy discussion Friday night after narrowly avoiding first-day elimination in the Class AAA state baseball tournament. Facing Redan, the fourth seed out of Region 5 (metro Atlanta), the Tigers eked out a 2-1 win before getting embarrassed 8-1.
That left a winner-take-all game this afternoon at 2 on Ringgold’s Bill Womack Field. Senior right-hander Nathan Camp, who saved game one Friday with a rickety inning of work, is scheduled to take his turn for the Tigers (28-6).
For the public, at least, Tigers coach Tucker was taking the glass-half-full attitude about the split with the Raiders (23-9).
“They’re a good baseball team. They can make you look bad,” Tucker said. “I thought in the first game we played great. We played a heck of a ballgame. Holden (Tucker, the coach’s son) had how many strikeouts (nine) he had, but he threw a tremendous ballgame and Ty (Jones) hit the home run in the sixth to put us ahead.”
Holden Tucker’s performance might have gone for naught if not for his senior teammate Jones. After opposing pitcher Kameron Marshall surprised the Tigers with a solo home run in the third inning, the Tigers failed to break through to tie it until the fourth on their first hit (by Tucker himself, on a bunt) and a bases-loaded walk to Jones.
The senior put them ahead when he tomahawked a shoulder-high pitch from Marshall down the left-field line – a rope that somehow did not slice. Because Tucker was well over 100 pitches, senior Camp got the ball and survived his own error to secure the save.
Second-game starter Wyatt Tennant (undefeated in the regular season) was never in game two. He walked the bases loaded, allowed a sacrifice fly on a foul ball by Raiders catcher Orlando Adams and then was stunned by a three-run thunderbolt — an opposite-field homer by Raul Guerrero.
Guerrero would pile on with an RBI double in the third to back game two starter Taj Bradley, who went the distance on a three-hitter. Again, Jones drove in the only Ringgold run on a sixth-inning single to score Tucker, who also had singled. The unsung hero for the Tigers was reliever John Camiliucci, who ground out five innings after Tennent’s disastrous first inning.
“It was just a game we let get away from us early,” Coach Tucker said. Odds are good that was phrased differently for his players.
Contact David Jenkins at sports@timesfreepress.com.