Todd Stanley didn’t want to have any regrets.
After a standout baseball career at Caledonia High School and Mississippi College, Stanley wanted to find a way to keep baseball in his life. A job as a respiratory therapist didn’t give him a lot of free time to pursue that desire, but he still managed to find time to coach baseball on weekends and with local American Legion teams.
The longer Stanley worked with young players, the more he wanted to do it every day.
Years later, now a veteran head coach, Stanley can look back this week and savor a milestone victory.
The West Lowndes High School baseball team’s 13-4 victory against Noxapater helped Stanley earn his 200th victory as a head coach.
The event went with little fanfare until assistant coach Eddie Chapman reached out to members of the local media to make sure his former coaching opponent and now head coach received his due. Chapman, who used to be a baseball coach at West Oktibbeha County High, is an assistant baseball coach at West Lowndes.
“I didn’t at the time think I would get to 200 wins,” said Stanley, who was hired at West Lowndes High for the 1997-98 school year. “It has really flown by. It seemed like a few years ago I was getting started. I have been blessed to have a lot of good ballplayers. We have had two Dandy Dozen players, two get drafted, and numerous kids play college ball. You don’t see that a lot at small schools.
“As long as those kids out there love it, I will be there. I have been blessed to work with so many good athletes over the years.”
Henry Mayfield went 3-for-4 with two doubles, three runs scored, and two RBIs. He also earned the victory on the mound. Trevor Stowers was 1-for-2 with two walks, Katzman Rogers was 2-for-3 with a run and two walks, and Eric Crawford was 3-for-4 with an RBI, and two runs scored.
Stanley was a pitcher and shortstop at Caledonia High School. After graduating from that school in 1988, he moved on to Mississippi College, where he played from 1988-90. He soon realized after he started working as a respiratory therapist that the only way for him to stay around the game of baseball was to go back to school to become a teacher. He said his wife and his mother encouraged him to take that step, and that is where he has been since he graduated from Mississippi State University in 1996 ready to teach social studies.
“It was, I guess you could say, unnerving because we hadn’t been married long and we had a small child, so there were a lot of uncertainties,” Stanley said. “But my wife and my mother encouraged me and we just made it work. I didn’t want to regret it later in life, and it has all worked out.”
Stanley thanked Roosevelt Bridges, the current athletic director at West Lowndes High, for hiring him with limited baseball coaching experience. After graduating from MSU, Stanley worked as an assistant baseball coach at Heritage Academy. He said he told Bridges when he interviewed for the job that he would be the kind of teacher/coach who would stay at the school for a long time.
Nearly 15 years later, Stanley has remained true to his word. He said he will obtain his master’s degree in education leadership, but he would love to remain at West Lowndes to work with the baseball team.
“I plan on staying as long as they will have me,” Stanley said. “West Lowndes has been good to me. It is home. I can’t leave those kids. I love it out there.”
West Lowndes (3-7, 3-3 district) will play host to French Camp at 6 p.m. Monday.
n New Hope 8, Saltillo 6: At Saltillo, Peyton Lee pitched six strong innings, and Tee Payne had a two-run home run and three RBIs to lead the Trojans (17-6, 5-1 district) to a key win Friday night.
On Saturday, Kosciusko defeated New Hope 12-4.
On Friday, Lee struck out four and walked five before giving way to Taylor Stafford in the seventh.
Payne also had a single and a double, Stafford had two singles, Lee had a single and an RBI, Jace Caldwell had two singles and two RBIs, and Rooke Coleman had a single.
New Hope will play at 6 p.m. Tuesday at Oxford and at 7 p.m. Friday a West Point.
n Heritage Academy 10-5, Lee Academy 0-0: At Columbus, James Clark and Hunter Ward each pitched complete games Friday to lead the Patriots (12-10, 6-5 conference).
Clark allowed just one hit in six innings in the mercy-ruled game one. M.J. Hamrick and Thomas DeGrange had three hits, Garrett Hall had two hits, and Clark and Parker Dunaway each had hits.
In game two, Tyler Marchak had two hits and Dunaway, Hamrick and Clark had hits to back Ward.
Heritage Academy will play at 1 p.m. Monday at Lee Academy.
n Caledonia 10, Adairsville, Ga. 8; Caledonia 4, Hamilton 3; At Caledonia, Ryan Unruh pitched five strong innings and then received some relief help from Montana Jacobs in the seventh as the Confederates started Friday with a victory.
Taylor Brown then delivered a complete-game outing later in the day as Caledonia (13-8) held off Hamilton.
In the first game, Unruh allowed six hits and struck out four in five innings. Jacobs struck out two in the seventh to get the save.
Caleb Brown had a double, Trey Lancaster was 2-for-4 with two RBIs, Jeremy Reed-Wood was 2-for-3 with two RBIs, and Luke Eads had a two-run double in the first.
In the second game, Brown allowed just three hits and struck out nine. All three runs against him were unearned. Lancaster (2-for-4) stole home in the fifth with what proved to be the winning run. Andrew Davis was 2-for-3 with an RBI, Nathan Kendrick was 2-for-3, and Brown had two hits, including a double.
Caledonia will play Tuesday at Noxubee County.
n In other baseball action last week, Anthony Sharp pitched a no-hitter to lead the Victory Christian baseball team to a 10-0 victory against Marion Academy 10-0.
Sharp struck out 13 and walked two.
Taylor Frye had three singles, Shane Bradford and Will Pitts each had a double, and Sharp and Kaleb Holiness had a single.
n Tres Turner allowed six hits and struck out four Thursday to lead the Oak Hill Academy baseball team to a 9-5 victory against Winston Academy.
Jacob Shempert had two hits, Adam Tumey had two singles and three RBIs, Clay Henley and Riley Pierce had a single and an RBI, and Drew Riley had a single. Jeb Stevens and Connor Baird also contributed to the attack.
n In fast-pitch softball action from Thursday, Cara Hopper struck out 16 and didn’t allow a hit in a 4-1 victory against Kosciusko.
Chelsea Goley had a single, Hope Burton had two sacrifices, Ashley Langford had singles, Cassie Obman had two singles, Sarah Beth Kinard had a single and a double, and Lindsey Burton had two singles for the LAdy Confederates (10-7, 3-2 district).
Emily Hicks had a double and Obman had a triple in the junior varsity softball team’s 9-4 loss.
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