CALEDONIA — West Point High School baseball coach Buddy Myers saw his team simply going through the motions.
Their playoff hopes were gone and their heads were down resulting in an 8-4 loss to Caledonia High School Saturday afternoon.
A Friday night loss to New Hope ended the possibility of the Green Wave (7-12) making the Class 5A region playoffs and Myers’ fear of that loss removing the effort needed to end the season strong.
“I kind of felt that happening with us no doubt,” Myers said. “That sort of situation defines your individual competitive spirit and your willingness to play seven solid innings of a game.”
After going down 1-0 in the opening inning, Caledonia (16-8) rallied off seven unanswered runs against West Point starting pitcher Dalton Davis. In a five-run, fourth inning for the Confederates the frame was started by a double off the left-centerfield wall by junior Montana Jacobs. Two errors and three hits later and Caledonia found itself up comfortably 7-1.
Despite getting through a comfortable win in the first half of a day-night doubleheader with his club, Caledonia head coach John Wilson was not close to satisfied with his players.
“This should have been a five-inning (run-ruled) baseball game and we didn’t it pitch it for do-do,” Wilson said. “This has been a problem that we can’t put teams away like we should on Saturdays. Never happens during the week but we get to the weekend and can’t do anything.”
Caledonia left-handed starting pitcher Brandon Darling allowed just one run on two hits through four innings on the mound to earn the win.
Wilson believes that his depth on the mound is what could mount a region playoff run no matter who they face next week when the postseason begins.
“We feel like we can roll out four or five arms in a week that will give us a chance in any game,” Wilson said. “The fact of the matter is what we can’t let us get beat by is our inability to manufacture runs.”
The Confederates got a multi-hit afternoon versus West Point pitching from junior Trey Lancaster including a triple off the left field wall in the sixth inning.
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