STARKVILLE — The Starkville Academy baseball team did not get to 28-5 by overlooking anyone, even if the Vols were playing a team they routed by 12 runs two days earlier.
“Like we’ve done all season, just move on to the next one,” said junior Drew Williams, who took the mound on Thursday against Lamar after the Vols had routed the Raiders 13-1 on Tuesday. “If we win, forget it. If we lose, forget it. Just go on to the next game.”
It won’t be easy to forget Williams’ performance against the Raiders. After allowing a first-inning run, Williams retired 15 of the next 16 batters he faced while the offense hit three solo home runs during a 5-2 win over Lamar, wrapping up their first-round MAIS Class 5A playoff series in a 2-0 sweep.
The win sends Starkville Academy into the second round against District 2 champion Simpson, which swept Bayou by scores of 9-4 and 9-3.
Williams set down the Raiders in order four times and did not walk a batter.
“Basically after the first inning I was just juiced up,” said Williams, who allowed a run on three hits in the top of the first. “Then I found the curveball, and that seemed to be working for me, so I just stuck with that.”
“He got ahead in the count after that first inning,” Vols coach Thomas Berkery said. “He got a lot of fastball counts. And really, none of those balls in the first inning were really well struck. They just found holes, but when you pitch behind in the count you make an average hitter better.”
Williams would not allow another hit until the fourth, when a leadoff single was erased on a sweet unassisted double play by second baseman Randall Futral. Williams retired seven straight before that single, and he retired seven straight after the double play, which saw Futral stab a line drive and dive toward second base, getting his glove on the bag just in time to double up Liam Gilbert.
By that time, Starkville Academy had a lead thanks to the long ball. It took Harris McReynolds one pitch to tie the game in the bottom of the first, sending a fly ball to the opposite field that kept sailing until it dropped over the left-field fence.
Evan Siary duplicated that feat leading off the second, pulling a 3-1 pitch from Lamar starter Eli Huebner over the fence in left.
Siary, a Mississippi State commit, belted another solo home run in the fifth, this time more toward left-center.
“Both fastballs down,” Siary said of the pitches he took out of the park. “Looking just to stay middle of the field … get a number up there for Drew to go back out and pitch.”
Siary played a role in the other two runs, although not in the way he would have liked. The Vols loaded the bases with none out in the third on two walks and an error, and Siary grounded into a double play that scored Ayden Alsobrooks.
Two batters later, Hayes Davis connected for a two-out single to score Colby Allen for a 4-1 Vols lead.
With Williams working efficiently — he needed 67 pitches to get through six innings — and not walking anyone, the only question was whether he would finish the game.
The answer, unhappily at first, was no.
“He told me I was coming out, and I begged him,” Williams said. “I begged him, but I understand.”
Colby Allen came on to pitch the seventh and was greeted by back-to-back doubles by Gilbert and Polizzi. But Allen settled in to get the next three batters on infield grounders, and the Vols were on their way to the second round.
Despite the three home runs, pitching and defense were the story of this one. Futral’s play stood out, but McReynolds made a fine catch going to his right, snaring a ball barely off the ground to end the fifth. And Siary made a nice scoop on a low throw at first, preventing the Raiders from putting the leadoff man on in the sixth.
“The pitching staff did great tonight, and our defense played phenomenal all night,” Siary said. “It was fun.”
Perhaps not as much fun as the series opener, but it got the job done.
“Tuesday was really good,” Berkery said. “We had a lot of energy, a lot of mojo. Today, we were flat. And Huebner did a good job of mixing and keeping us off balance a little bit.
“We had seven walks, so we did a good job working, got to a lot of 3-2 counts, but definitely not our offensive attack we normally want to see.”
But Berkery was pleased to get a win on a day a lot of teams might have looked past an opponent they so soundly defeated two days earlier.
“This group is so old and mature, most of the time they bring it,” he said. “The one time we kind of got hit in the mouth after a big win, we came out flat, didn’t really bring it. So today I’ll give them credit. They‘ve kind of grown a little bit. We did what we had to do to win.”
And they expect to keep doing just that.
Said Siary: “We’re just taking one game at a time, going on to the next series, staying together as a family and seeing how far we can take this family for the rest of the season.”
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