Phoenix hoping to get on the field now
MTenney@CalhounTimes.com
They say the baseball is a game meant to be played more than practiced.
And the Sonoraville High School baseball team is hoping to test that theory this week. Because they are sick of practicing.
“We’ve been practicing for weeks now and the guys are chomping at the bit to play right now,” Sonoraville High School head coach Deron Walraven said. “We didn’t get to play that first game at Adairsvlle (last) Thursday like we hoped, so we’re ready to go. We’re ready to play. We want to get it rolling and hopefully we can do that this week.”
The schedule has changed with their new field christened on Monday when they hosted and finally got their season opener in — a 4-1 win over Coosa. Originally, there was to be a ribbon-cutting ceremony but with school out for the Winter break, that will been postponed for now.
Then the Phoenix begin a three-games-in-less-than-48hours trek Thursday, when they finish their home-and-away with Coosa for a 5:30 p.m. first pitch at Coosa High. On Friday, they return home to play for a second time on their new field when they face neighboring Calhoun at 5:30 p.m. Then at high noon on Saturday, they will play at Adairsville in the makeup game that was rained out last Thursday.
Walraven said it would be huge for his team if they get to play all those games.
“We have a lot of (pitchers) we’d like to take a look at and we’ve got a lot of guys we’d like to get at-bats, so we’re planning on looking at a lot of different things this week,” he said. “And so we’re hoping the weather will cooperate. We’re looking forward to hopefully getting in a couple of games in on our new field. We play Calhoun and that’s always exciting. We have the game with Adairsville scheduled that we didn’t get to play. So we know it could be a busy week, but we’d really like for that to happen because we want to play. I know what my guys are capable of doing and now it’s time to see us going against someone else.”
Senior Zach Lyles, who has signed his college baseball scholarship with Western Kentucky, was the starting pitcher Monday against Coosa. But the coach wouldn’t say exactly how the staff would shake out after that.
“We’re going to start Zach in that first game. And we’re excited about that. He’s a senior and he’s looked good so we’re excited about seeing how he does and how he looks,” Walraven said. “But after that, we’re going to just see how it goes. We have a number of guys we want to look at and hopefully this week, against someone else, we’ll get that first real opportunity.
“But we have a number of guys that we want to look at and see where they are at and how they do. We want to keep all their pitch counts down early here in the season and just kind of see where everybody is and how they look going against someone else. But to be able to do that, we need to be able to play, which is why we’re really hoping we can get these games in, especially the three games in three days at the end of the week.”
He has a large senior class and is only missing a couple of players from the basketball team, which opens the GHSA 4A playoffs 6:30 p.m. Wednesday night at The Furnace, and Walraven says, simply put, they want some live action.
“We’ve an experienced team and those guys have looked good,” Walraven said. “They know what we have a chance to do some good things. They remember last year when we went to a third game in the second round of the playoffs against the team (Pike County) that won the state championship, but I think they feel like we have practiced enough. And our practices have been great, the kids have done everything we’re asking them to do, but they’re ready to start playing.”
The team did hold its lone scrimmage two weeks ago against Ringgold, but it seems like an eternity has passed since that glorified workout took place.
“We treated it like a scrimmage because that’s what it was,” Walraven said. “We lost, but we had our chances.
We left eight runners on, but like I said, we treated it like a scrimmage. We looked at a lot of different pitchers. We looked at all of our hitters. But, looking back, we’re glad we were able to get that scrimmage in because even though it was a while ago, it’s been the only chance we’ve had to go against someone else.
“But we treated it like a scrimmage. We played a lot of different people. We looked at different pitchers. We looked at players in a couple of different situations. The important thing for us was just to be able to play and go against someone else and that’s how we treated it. Now we just want to play real games.”
While the varsity was finally able to play on Monday, the junior varsity got off to a 2-0 start last week, defeating Calhoun 5-1 on Tuesday on Chip Henderson Field and then defeating Woodland 19-7, Saturday morning at Woodland High School.
Sonoraville at Adairsville, 5:30 p.m., Adairsville High School
Red Bud Middle School vs. Rockmart, 5 p.m., The Furnace
Calhoun Middle School vs. Adairsville, 5:30 p.m., Chip Henderson Field
Sonoraville at Coosa, 5:30 p.m., Coosa High School
Calhoun Middle School at Woodland. 4:30 p.m., Woodland Middle
Calhoun Middle School boys and girls vs. Adairsville, 4:30 p.m., Calhoun Tennis Complex
Friday, Feb. 24
Calhoun at Sonoraville, 5:30 p.m., The Furnace
Calhoun junior varsity vs. Dalton, 5:30 p.m., Chip Henderson Field
Gordon Central at Lumpkin County, 5:30 p.m.,
Calhoun girls vs. Dalton, 5 p.m., Calhoun High School
Gordon Central girls at Dawson County, 5 p.m., Dawson County
Calhoun vs. Dalton, 7 p.m., Calhoun High School
Gordon Central at Dawson County, 7 p.m., Dawson County High School
Calhoun Middle School boys and girls triangular meet, 4 p.m., Calhoun High School
Saturday, Feb. 25
Calhoun vs. Oconee County, 2 p.m., Carrolton High School
Calhoun vs. Carrolton, 5 p.m., Carrolton High School
Calhoun junior varsity game vs. Model, first game starts at 1 p.m., Chip Henderson Field
Calhoun vs. Harris County, 5 p.m., Barron Stadium in Rome