Phoenix sweep Oconee in the opening round
Sonoraville High School head baseball coach Deron Walraven wants his players to understand one thing from here on out.
If they’re going to survive and advance, and that’s the theme for everyone still playing in the GHSA 3A state playoffs like the Phoenix are, every night at the ballpark will be like the one they experienced last Friday night in Oconee County, when they traveled over 100 miles to eliminate the Warriors, 6-2 and 13-8 and sweep their best-of-three opening round victory.
“It was a wild night,” Walraven said. “The Georgia High School baseball playoffs are always wild. I mean every game is intense. No lead, big or small, is safe. Ever. Until that last out is made, you’ve got to keep your head in the game and stay focused on what you’re doing. And you can’t let up. I mean we found that out against Oconee. But you’ve got to keep your head down and keep playing until you get that last out or it can turn on you real quick.”
He was referring to a comeback Oconee made in Game Two when the Warriors fell behind quickly 8-0, but then rallied with a five-run fifth to tie the game at eight going into the bottom half of the frame. Undaunted, his guys came back with a four-run home half, because they were delegated the home team in Game Two, to open it back up.
“It was fun to watch us have that big inning after they tied it up,” Walraven said. “You never know how your kids are going to react in a situation like that because it’s easy to hang your head when you let a big lead like that get away. But we came right back and put a crooked number on the board with our four runs and obviously, I wasn’t comfortable because they still had a couple of atbats left, but I know I felt a lot better about the situation.”
The sweep of OC now means the Firebirds will play Region 2-3A champion Pike County this week in a second-round three-game set. The teams are to play a doubleheader starting at 4 p.m. Wednesday afternoon in Zebulon and Game Three, if needed, will be back at Pike County HS at 6 p.m. Thursday.
In the first round last week, they began the day with a 6-2 win over the Warriors as senior hurler Trevor Childers went to an outstanding 10-0 on the year with the complete game victory. He struck out six, walked one and allowed one earned run — a solo homer late in the game with his team up 6-1.
“Trevor pitched very well,” Walraven said. “They have a very good team offensively, but he made his pitches and never really got into any big trouble. They got a run on us early and they’ve got a kid that has hit 14 or 15 homers this year and he hit a solo shot late, but other than that, Trevor pitched another great game and held them in check.”
The game was close early but the Phoenix scored in four different innings and collected over a dozen hits to put themselves in position for the quick two-game takedown.
“I thought we played very well,”
Walraven said. “You always worry going into a game like that against a team from a Region that you really don’t know much about. But I know from the start, the kids were ready to play. I could tell in our first atbat that we had a chance to have a good day at the plate because I liked our approach. And we didn’t have that big inning, like we did in Game Two, but we were getting people on in just about every inning and with us, if we do that, we’ve got the guys that can bring them in.”
Fired up by the win, they sent 12 men to the plate and scored eight runs in the bottom of the first in Game Two to take command after just one inning of play.
“That was something to watch,”Walraven said. “I mean you win the first game and the kids are excited about it and rightfully so, and then you come out and score eight runs in your first at-bat in Game Two, you should feel good about it. And we did. But I know how these games go and I knew that Oconee has a good team and they weren’t done fighting.”
And they weren’t, scoring three runs in the second off junior starter Zach Lyles and then, aided by three Phoenix errors, five more in the fifth to catch the visitors at eight. But sophomore shortstop Jaxon Pate, who finished with six hits on the day, came in on relief and got the pitching win by shutting down the hosts the last two innings after the Phoenix scored four runs in the bottom of the fifth for a 12-8 lead.
“Jaxon did a great job,” Walraven said. “We needed someone to come in and keep them off the board and he did just that. But with the way they had rallied to tie it, I didn’t take a deep breath until we got that last out in the seventh.”
Lyles also played a huge role in taking the wind out of Oconee County’s sails, starting out the Warriors’
last at-bat by making a terrific catch as he laid out full-extension, catching a dropping blooper to record the first out of the inning and halt the home team’s thoughts of putting together one final big rally.
“That was just a great play by Zach,” Walraven said. “And I think it was the play that really deflated them. It looked for sure like it was going to be a hit, but Zach made a major league catch and you could just kind of feel the air go out of them. We got the final two outs on just three pitches, so at that point, we just started to dogpile. And that’s the greatest feeling in the world as a coach is too watch your team out on the field in a dogpile because that means you’ve done something pretty special.”
Lyles also had a productive night at the plate in the doubleheader and Dawson Townsend had four hits, Childers produced an RBI double, and Cole Gross also had multiple hits.
“Everybody did a great job with the bats,” Walraven said. “Anytime we can get 13 or 14 hits a game, like we did, I like our chances. But we just had quality at-bats from the very start and it was good to see.”
Now they play Pike County, which has an excellent 28-3 record on the year and ran the table in Region 2-3A with a perfect 14-0 mark. The Pirates have not lost to a 3A school this year, with all their defeats coming against 5A opponents as they have lost to Ware County, Ola, and Locust Grove.
They also began the playoffs last week in impressive fashion, sweeping Thomson by back-to-back 10-0 scores. The Sonoraville coach said a team doesn’t win 28 games in a season in Georgia by accident.
“Pike County’s got a very good team,” he said. “I am still learning all I can about them, but I understand they’ve got three outstanding pitchers. All of them are hard throwers and one of them touches 90 (miles per hour). And one of them is a Kennesaw State commit, so they’ve got some good pitchers.
And you can see they’ve got a good lineup. They’ve scored a lot of runs this year, so it’s going to be a challenge. But every game from here on out is going to be, so we’re excited about getting the chance to go play them and we’re excited about having the opportunity to keep playing. And I think it’s a great chance for our kids to just keep putting their best foot forward.”
He said the unbeaten Childers will get the ball to pitch Game One and he’s not sure who will go after that.
“At this point, for that first game, you hand the ball to your senior leader,” Walraven said. “Trevor’s been pitching well all year. He pitched very well against Oconee. He’s really having an excellent year for us. He’s mixing up his pitches really well. He may not be hitting 90, but he’s throws 83 or 84 and knows how to locate and keep the hitters offbalance and I’ll take that any day. Every pitch has a purpose. He competes and throws every pitch like he’s trying to get the last out of the game, so we always like our chances when Trevor’s out there dealing.”
And he said he has options for Game Two and Three, if they have to play the Pirates in a winnertake-all.
“We’ve got a few different guys we can go with and that’s important this time of the year,” Walraven said. “We’ve got Zach. We’ve got Jaxon. We’ve got Matthew (Parrott). We’ve got a number of different guys we can go with, but we know whoever goes out there, is going to go out and compete, so we’re excited about this and hopefully, we can have a good night and push some runs across like we did against Oconee and then let our pitching and our defense do its job.”
The Phoenix are 22-7 on the year.
The winner of the Sonoraville-Pike County series will meet the winner of the Long County-GAC series next week in the Elite Eight.