After rallying in extra innings for a sweep of New Hope in the quarterfinals, Caledonia’s baseball team is surfing a new-found wave of momentum heading into the Class 5A North Half Championship series against another Region 1-5A foe – Pontotoc.
The Cavaliers scored four runs in the eighth inning to clinch its spot in the semifinal series, which begins at 7 p.m. today in Caledonia, leaving the team just two wins away from playing for a state championship. Game 2 will be at 7 p.m. in Pontotoc and if needed Game 3 will be played at 6 p.m. Monday in Caledonia.
The last few weeks have been good to be a Cavalier, first-year head coach Chase Reeves said.
“It definitely feels good,” he said. “There’s a lot of excitement around the community and that’s a fun thing. It’s been good. There’s a ton of energy at practice working on the little things. We’ve been in the weight room trying to stay up to speed there. Just trying to create that competitive environment like we have been trying to do all year. It’s been good. The boys have responded really well, and they’re excited.”
In order to get to the title game the Cavs will have to find a way to hold off the Warriors for two more wins, and if the regular season is indicative of the upcoming series then it’s going to be close and competitive. The two teams opened region play against each other with a two-game set earlier in the year, and Warriors started things off with a 6-1 win. Pontotoc pitcher and Jones Community College commit Miller Finn held the Cavs to just one hit and piled up nine strikeouts while his teammates racked up seven hits and six RBI. Caledonia flipped the script in the second game with two runs in the seventh inning, including an RBI single from Aaron Harris to earn a 6-5 walk-off win.
“They are a really good team,” Reeves said. “They are coached really well and they have talent. They have talent all over the field. Their pitchers are good, they swing the bat well and they are a very scrappy team. Kind of like what I’ve said all year, ‘Anybody in our division, when you play it’s going to be a dogfight.’ That’s what it’ll be this weekend and we just have to get out there and get after it and execute at a high level.”
Pontotoc ended its regular season by getting swept by Lafayette and finished fourth in the region standings. The Warriors rebounded in the first round of the playoffs with a sweep of Florence, then went the distance with Lafayette in round two to gain entrance into the North Half Championship. Pontotoc dropped Game 1 against the Commodores, 4-1, then rebounded with 2-0 and 9-1 victories. In that series finale, pitcher Corbyn Clayton held Lafayette to just three hits while he piled up seven punchouts and five walks while team-leading hitter Carson Witcher put four balls in play from the plate.
The Cavs boast their own flamethrower on the mound in Liberty commit Garrett Reid. He racked up 10 strikeouts in Caledonia’s Game 1 win over New Hope and had a double and home run in at the plate in Game 2. Cohen Clark leads the team with 31 hits, and three others have at least 20 knocks on the season. Pontotoc has six players with at least 20 hits, two have at least 30 and Witcher has 46.
Reeves said the North Half winner could be decided by which team’s bullpen performs better. Both teams feature depth and talent on the mound and hits could come at a premium.
“There’s certain innings, certain at-bats in high-leverage moments and high-leverage situations (where) as a hitter you have to have a plan,” Reeves said. “Every pitcher has a plan against you and we have to have one back to combat that. As a coach I’ve been proud to see our guys kind of buy into that and grow and just focus on winning on winning one pitch.
“It’s just playing clean baseball. There’s going to be adversity, there’s going to be ups and downs in the series – they are a good baseball team – but you have to go out there and execute well. When we get opportunities to score we have to do it. When we get chances to keep them off the scoreboard we have to do the same thing. I think whoever handles adversity the best and can mitigate the big inning, I think that’s going to be the ticket.”
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