STARKVILLE — Neil Henry has the football program at Starkville Academy to thank for his team’s baseball success in 2012.
The Volunteers’ baseball coach has seen the hunger, passion, and fire from his team since the start of practice, knowing that most of his key contributors didn’t win a state football championship in the fall.
They intend to rectify that situation on the baseball diamond.
“There’s no doubt in my mind the kids that played football this season got a taste of what it was like to compete for a state title,” Henry said. “The key for us in baseball is they got just a taste. They know they left something out there to be accomplished.”
Starkville Academy won its football division in 2011 with a 10-win season that ended in Clinton with a shutout loss to Washington School.
The success on the gridiron was the first good stretch for the program and their first winning season since capturing the state title in 2005.
Senior Ryan Mann and juniors Drew Pellum and Colby Runnels are veteran leaders who have taken that football experience and turned into a potential division championship in baseball.
“There’s two ways that could’ve gone for us,” Henry said. “The fact is they lose that football title game 20-0 and they could’ve phoned in the baseball season. Nope. They decided they wanted to get what they didn’t in football.”
Starkville Academy (20-7, 10-5 conference) used patience at the plate and capitalized on several Presbyterian Christian defensive mistakes Monday for an 11-6 victory in a makeup game from a rainout earlier this season.
“My kids took to the scouting report really well of their pitcher and I was so glad that my kids are listening and translating what we tell them to the park,” Henry said.
Before the third inning, Presbyterian Christian (2-18) had allowed 10 walks and hit a batter. Starkville Academy finally broke the game open in the third inning with a four-run frame that turned a tied game into a 7-3 lead.
“It was so important for us to answer there and we got some confidence from that right there,” Henry said. “I didn’t think we fielded it very well so it was important for us to keep putting up runs.”
Senior Alex Holtcamp pitched a complete game. He settled down from early struggles to give up three runs in the final six innings.
Mann hit a walk-off home run over the left-field wall to give Starkville Academy a 3-2 nine-inning victory against Hillcrest Christian in the first game of a doubleheader Thursday. Pellum pitched all nine innings to get the win. He allowed only two hits.
In the second game, a 2-1 victory, junior Hunter Bolin had 10 strikeouts in a complete-game effort. He allowed just one run on six hits. That one-two pitching combination has Henry thinking his Volunteers can make a deep postseason run.
“Our pitching staff comes to the park every day with the philosophy from our pitching coach Casey Orr that we’re going to make people hit it on us,” Henry said. “They’ve really come together and here at SA we’re always going to win games with pitching and defense that’s for sure.”
The second part of the battery is Runnels. He calls the pitches for Bolin, a right-hander, a rare responsibility for a high school catcher.
Bolin had two hits in the nightcap of the doubleheader last week against Hillcrest to give him five for the day. Pellum had a single and a double to give him multiple hits.
SA, which is a game and a half ahead in its division with less than a week to go, will have a better opportunity of who it will face in the postseason by Wednesday.
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