Jeffrey Cook didn”t think the idea was crazy.
After all, Hunter Mullis had just delivered a performance beyond his wildest expectations to help keep the Columbus High School baseball team”s season alive.
But Cook had never started the same pitcher in back-to-back playoff games — let alone done it on the same day — so he talked to Jim Mullis about the possibility of starting Hunter in game three against Warren Central.
After that, he checked with Mullis to see how he felt after a 68-pitch complete-game effort in a 5-2 victory.
“My arm felt great,” Mullis said. “I was surprised when coach asked me to start game three.”
Given Mullis” mastery of Warren Central in game two, it wasn”t a surprise to see Mullis take the mound approximately 20 minutes later for the deciding game. For four innings, he did his best to duplicate his effort from earlier in the afternoon, helping Columbus take a lead into the fifth inning.
That”s when 11-plus innings finally hit Mullis.
“The last inning I think it all just started to get to me and I felt really tired,” Mullis said.
Warren Central capitalized, rallying from a 2-1 deficit en route to a 9-4 victory that ended Columbus” season at 14-15.
Mullis, one of several underclassmen to play key roles this season, hopes the lessons the team learned from its 10-4 start and its resurgence in the playoffs will help the team build for what could be a promising 2012 season.
“It looks good for next year,” Mullis said. “(The season) let us know we”re able to do it and, hopefully, it will drive us to work harder through the summer for next season.”
Mullis learned Friday night after a 6-5 loss to Warren Central he would start Saturday. He said he approached the start like any other outing in the regular season.
“I went out there and just decided to throw strikes and let the defense do the work,” Mullis said. “I was focusing on the next inning and concentrating on not letting them get too many runs.”
Mullis allowed nine hits and four earned runs in 11 2/3 innings. He walked two (none in game two) and struck out five. For the season, he was 3-4 in 38 innings. His wins and innings were second behind sophomore right-hander Christian Dale. He walked 15 and struck out 31 in 10 games (six starts).
Cook said Mullis probably never expected to throw as many varsity innings as he did this season. Injuries to Nick Durrah and Trace Lee forced Cook to go deeper into his pitching rotation, and Mullis delivered.
“He did an unbelievable job,” Cook said. “He kept the ball down, kept throwing strikes, and mixed it up a little bit more in the second game. He is not as fast as some of the other guys we have, and guys sometimes tend to figure him out the third time.
“Warren Central is a good team and a good program, and it took them until their sixth and seventh times to get onto him a little bit. It was just because I think Hunter got a little tired.”
Cook said the performance of Mullis is just one of bright spots. He praised the play of senior Durrah and second baseman/pitcher Dylan Patel, who served as leaders throughout the year. He said returning players like Dale, who hit .403 and paced the team on the mound and in the field, sophomore Jimmy Cockrell (.286), and freshmen Greg Sykes and Chris McCullough (.364) learned a lot from their extended playing time this season and should be primed to take a big step forward next season.
“I don”t think they are (satisfied),” Cook said. “After the second game against Warren Central when it finally sunk it that we had finally gotten beat, we saw some raw emotion that we hadn”t seen out of the guys in a long time. That was good to see. It hurt, and that is something that with Columbus sports you haven”t seen, and that emotion was good to see because they knew how close we were to moving on.”
Cook believes the playoff victory was the program”s first since the mid 1990s. He said the team will be hard-pressed to replace three-year starters like Durrah and Patel, but he is confident the Falcons made the most of their postseason experience and will come back hungry to do more next season.
“Our future looks pretty good,” Cook said. “We”re returning seven, eight, nine guys who played or started in games this year. It is going to be fun.
“After the game I told them how proud of them I was of them and how big of a deal it was for these young guys to get a taste, but we”re not satisfied. I told them next year we want a piece of the whole thing. We set a goal for next year to get to Trustmark Park (the site of the MHSAA baseball finals). The next two years around here are going to be pretty good.”
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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