Washington County Enterprise-Leader
Frankenstein Eyes Cardinals In Mirror
CONFERENCE FOES DO IN FARMINGTON BASEBALL
FARMINGTON — The Farmington Class of 2022 played such a high level of baseball along with their teammates the past four seasons they helped create a Frankenstein among 4A-1 teams.
That monster rose up in the forms of Huntsville and Shiloh Christian to do them in at the most inopportune time going into the 2022 Class 4A State baseball tournament hosted by Nashville.
“You go through those things as a coach where you’ve got groups that you’re really excited about. We were really excited about this group three years ago as freshmen and they’ve lived up to it,” said Farmington head baseball coach Jay Harper.
Harper recounted accomplishments by the graduating class, including back- to- back conference championships, district and regional titles in 2021 to go with a state semifinal appearance.
“We’ve won all these tournaments. We just didn’t win the big one, but they shouldn’t be judged on that. I can’t ask for a better group of guys than I had in those seniors. They’ve been really successful,” Harper said.
Disappointing Regional
A disappointing fourth place showing in the 4A North Regional set up Farmington’s baseball team in a tough first round state tournament matchup against Valley View. The Cardinals (18-10-1, 7-1 4A-1) exited the postseason in less than stellar fashion suffering three straight losses including a 15-3 setback to the Blazers and loses to Huntsville (7-4) in the 4A North Regional semifinal and Shiloh Christian (15-2) in the 4A North Regional consolation game.
“We really kind of hurt ourselves by not performing as well in the regional tournament as we should have. Then we drew Valley View. They got upset in their regional tournament, too, but they’ve been No. 1 all year long,” Harper said.
Lonoke knocked off Valley View, 12-7, in the semifinals of the 4A East Regional on May 9 at Brookland, but while the Blazers rebounded to shut out Joe. T. Robinson, 12-0, in the consolation game later the same day; Farmington’s 7- 4 loss to Huntsville in the 4A North Regional semifinals on May 7 sent the Cardinals into a nose dive, which they weren’t able to get out of.
Playing their second game of the day Farmington lost 15-2 to Shiloh Christian.
“In my opinion, our conference is the best in the state right now,” Harper said, and the performance of other league teams at state bear that out.
Harrison (22-12), 5-3 4A-1) won the state tournament edging Valley View, 10- 9, after beating Huntsville, 17-11, in the Class 4A semifinals. A week earlier the Eagles beat the Goblins, 13-10, to win the 4A North Regional.
Shiloh Christian ( 17-13, 6-2 4A-1) also advanced to the Class 4A semifinals on the other side of the bracket before losing 9-1 to Valley View.
Harper said competing head- to- head against top quality teams within its own league made the Cardinals tremendously better, yet admits the same holds true for their 4A-1 opponents.
“You got to regional and it basically becomes a district tournament,” Harper said. “From top to bottom it’s a difficult conference to compete in. Even the teams that didn’t make the regional tournament like Gentry and Prairie Grove are tough.”
Farmington qualified for state with a first-round 7-0 win over Heber Springs at the 4A North Regional at Morrilton, but dropped a semifinal game to league rival, Huntsville ( 24- 8, 6-2 4A-1). The combined records of the top four teams in the 4A-1, Farmington, Harrison, Huntsville and Shiloh Christian shows dominance ( 81- 43-1) with the Eagles sporting a better overall record than Harrison as state champions.
“Winning that game against Huntsville would have been very important for us to get that No. 1 seed going into the state tournament. For me as a coach some of the moves I made just didn’t work out. I take full responsibility for it,” Harper said.
Valley View 15, Farmington 3
“Myles Harvey pitched extremely well to have us a 3-2 lead in the sixth, then it fell apart for us,” Harper said.
Harvey reached his pitch count at 100 and the Cardinals tried both Weston Sills and Chase Brown. Neither was effective on the mound and Farmington surrendered 11 runs in the sixth inning.
“I thought we should go with a senior, but it didn’t work out for us and we never got back to bat,” Harper said.
Valley View sophomore Slade Caldwell, a Mississippi commit, belted a grand slam for the Blazers as they turned a close game 3-2 into a rout. He also came on in relief on the mound and threw 27 pitches to close out the game after starter Eli Crecelius threw 90 pitches.
Valley View coach Josh Allison attributed the surge to getting Harvey out of the game after feeling the sting of falling behind.
Shiloh Christian 15, Farmington 2
“We were out of pitching against Shiloh and they were out of pitching, too, but they hit better than us,” Harper said.
Dakota Goble homered and drove in three runs for the Saints, who exploded for 12 runs in the top of the third inning.
The Saints also played earlier and like Farmington lost in the semifinals, Shiloh by a 9-5 score to Harrison.
Ben Baker added three RBIs for Shiloh, while Miles Nantze and Graham Jones drove in two runs apiece. Deklen Gardenhire smashed a two- run homer for the Cardinals, who dropped into the consolation bracket after losing 7-4 to Huntsville in a semifinal game.