Phoenix begin state playoffs at Oconee
It has been an outstanding season for the Sonoraville High School baseball team.
They ended it Friday afternoon with a “wild” 9-8 road win over Coahulla Creek, giving them a six-game win streak to end the Region 6-3A schedule and a 20-win season for the first time in school history.
“We’re really pleased that we’ve set a new school record for wins in a season and we’re very proud that we won 20 games this year, but we’re hoping that we can add a few more to it,” said Sonoraville head baseball coach Deron Walraven. “We really have had a good season and we feel like we could have won a couple of more games, but now the key for us is too keep it going.”
And where they hope to keep it going is in the GHSA 3A state playoffs, which begin for the Phoenix Friday night with a best-of-three series at Oconee County, the two seed out of Region 8-3A. (The teams will play a doubleheader Friday starting at 4 p.m. and then a Game Three, if needed, will be back at Oconee at 11 a.m. Saturday morning.
The Phoenix closed out the regular season last week with three more wins, including a critical sweep of Coahulla Creek that kept them right close to the league leaders. They scored 32 runs in those games, starting with a 12-0 win over Murray County on Tuesday to finish that two-game series.
Then on Thursday, they thumped the Colts, 11-1, to the first of their two games and Friday, they got some critical late shutout relief pitching to rally for a 9-8 thriller over the Colts.
“It was another good week for us,” Walraven said. “We swung the bats really well and we were able to score some runs. And it was multiple players up-and-down the lineup that produced the hits for us.
“We played good defense and multiple pitchers did a good job for us on the mound. So we feel like we might be playing our best baseball right now and this is the time of the year you want to be at your best because the playoffs are here.”
He said they need to keep doing what they have been doing during this win streak.
“These last two weeks, I think the difference has been the way we’ve been swinging the bats,” Walraven said. “For the most part, all season, our pitching has been very good and our defense has been very good. And now it looks like we’re starting to hit our stride at
the plate, so it’s good to see our offense starting to catch up to the way we’ve pitched and played defense this year.”
In the win over North Murray, not only did they sting the ball all over the yard, but they also got outstanding pitching from junior lefthander A.J. Hensley, who struck out 10 hitters and gave up just two hits and two walks in working the five innings the Phoenix needed to get the job done.
“A.J. threw the ball very well,” Walraven said. “He went out there and was dominate. He had good control. He was ahead of the hitters. He just really did a nice job for us.”
Sophomore shortstop Jaxon Pate and senior Trevor Childers each clubbed a home run in the win as the hosts scored eight runs in the second inning and never looked back.
On Thursday, Childers improved his season record to an impressive 9-0, pitching a complete game win over Coahulla Creek.
“That’s heck of an accomplishment and I’m really proud of Trevor,” Walraven said. “He’s pitched really well this year and to win nine games in a high school season is a heck of an accomplishment. He’s a senior and it’s been a lot of fun to watch him pitch the way he has this year. He’s gone against some very good offenses and really shut them down. And Coahulla is another one. Trevor shut them down on Thursday and then they come back and score eight runs on us Friday, so that tells you how well Trevor pitched in that first game against them.”
The game was tied at one at the end of the first inning before an Easton Childs grand slam home run got the offense going.
After going the first couple of months without a home run, the Phoenix are suddenly hitting for serious power.
“I think that comes from us just swinging the bats better,” Walraven said. “The last couple of weeks, we’ve just hit the ball better than we did early in the year. We’re not trying to hit home runs. We’re just trying to put good swings on the baseball and get good results. But home runs are always nice. No question.
“And I also think the warmer weather helps. It’s been heating up the last couple of weeks and the ball seems to carry better when the weather is warm. But we have definitely been swinging the bats much better the last couple of weeks.”
Then they rallied a couple of times to knock off the Colts Friday in a game that Walraven said had a playoff-type atmosphere to it.
The teams were tied at one after one inning and then the Phoenix took a 3-1 lead, but the Colts came back to take a 4-3 advantage. They eventually pushed that lead to 8-5 but the Phoenix scored twice in the fifth, once in the sixth to tie it and then scored the winning run
in the top of the seventh.
They got that winning run as the teams entered their last at-bats with the score knotted at eight. Childs led off with a double and eventually the Phoenix were able to load the bases with just one out.
Childers then hit a sacrifice fly that brought in Childs for the goahead run and Pate came on in relief to pitch the bottom of the seventh inning and get the crucial save. Pate’s effort was followed by senior Matthew Parrott pitching two scoreless innings in the fifth and sixth frames while the Sonoraville offense caught up to the Creek.
“Matthew and Jaxon both did a great job for us, shutting them out those last innings,” Walraven said. “Coahulla was hitting us pretty hard the first four innings, but Matthew and Jaxon came in and gave us a chance to come back and win it.
“And I was just proud of the way the whole team kept batting because it was a real intense game. I think it anything, it might have gotten a little too intense and I give my kids credit for maintaining their poise. We just kept playing and didn’t let a lot of extra noise
rattle us.”
Now they play a Oconee County team that Walraven said he is still doing research on as of Sunday night.
“We don’t know a lot about them, but I do know they’re in a tough Region because they’re in the same Region as Franklin County and that’s the team we played last year,” he said. “I understand they have a kid that has hit 15 homers this year and they have a couple of very good pitchers. And we’ll learn more about them in the next couple of days, but I am sure they are a good team or they wouldn’t be here.”
He said the Phoenix aren’t about to change anything they’re doing. Instead, they would like to just keep doing it at a higher level every time they take the field.
“We’ve just got to keep playing like we have been, if not better,” Walraven said. “Everyone on the team is playing well right now, so we just need to keep hitting the ball and fielding the baseball and pitching like we have been.
“But the way we’ve been swinging
the bats, I wish we were playing tomorrow instead of having a week off. When you’re swinging it like we have been, you don’t want a long layoff. You want to keep playing, so the challenge for us will be to play offensively against Oconee like we have been these last couple of weeks.”
While he didn’t give away any company secrets, it would seem Childers will get the pitching start in Game One with his 9-0 record, but Walraven has a number of options he could go with a solid group of pitchers. Walraven could also go with someone else like Parrott or Hensley or Dawson Townsend in Game One and then go with Childers in Game Two with a chance to win the series or stave off elimination, depending on how that first game went.
The winner of the SonoravilleOconee County series will face the winner of the Thomson-Pike County series next week in the second round.
Rockmart ended its time in Region 6-3 by winning the championship and earning the top seed going into the playoffs, finishing with a 15-1 record in the league and that one loss was to the Phoenix.
The Yellow Jackets will face Stephens County this weekend in the first round.
Ringgold was second for the first time in six years and the Tigers, who finished 13-3 in the Region, will play Hart County to start the postseason. And Coahualla Creek, despite losing its last two games to Sonoraville, was the fourth seed out of Region 6-3A and faces Region 8 champ Franklin County in the first round.
The Creek and Lakeview-Fort Oglethorpe both finished 9-7 in the league but after all the tiebreakers were put forth, the Colts advanced.
The Phoenix are an excellent 20-7 on the year.