Baseball, Softball under way in the Midlands

MIDLANDS FEATURE

Baseball, Softball under way in the Midlands

By WORTHY EVANS

The cold and rainy weather (mostly) has given way to spring sports in the Midlands, and area baseball and softball teams are in the midst of showing what they’ve got.

The list of competitive teams is long. Baseball teams that are showing out include defending 5A state champion River Bluff as well as its Region 4-5A rivals Lexington, Chapin, and Dutch Fork. Blythewood, the 5A runner-up, has reloaded with a few standout players as well as a new coach. Class 4A Airport has already won its sixth region crown, 3A’s Gilbert, Camden and Dreher are playing well, and 2A Gray Collegiate is in the midst of making one more quest to win the final game of the season before moving to Class 4A next spring.

In softball, defending Region 4-5A champion Lexington likely battle Chapin again for the region crown, while across the Midlands Blythewood is looking to add another Region 3-5A title and win a district championship at the least. Meanwhile, Gray’s softball team is likely aiming for its second state championship before moving to 4A next year.

5A

Region 4-5A has always been a hotly contested baseball region (no matter what the numerical designation may be for any alignment period) that can vault teams into state championships. Lexington won its sixth state title in 2013. Dutch Fork broke through and won its first baseball championship in 2019. Last year, on its third trip to the 5A state championship series, River Bluff closed out a 2-0 series win over Blythewood.

As a result, those teams as well as Chapin and White Knoll often battle it out.

“It's a dogfight every year,” Silver Foxes head coach Casey Waites said. “Every region team is capable of winning it, and one team I think is flying under the radar is Chapin, we face them coming off of spring break and they’ve got a lot of seniors.”

Going into spring break, Dutch Fork (7-5) is on a four-game winning streak, including wins over White Knoll that put the Silver Foxes 2-0 in the region. River Bluff (8-5) is 3-2 and Lexington (8-6) is 2-3 in the region, both records as of March 28. White Knoll (5-7) is 1-4.

Chapin (8-1, 2-1) began region play at 6-0, but Lexington shut the Eagles out 4-0 March 20.

On the other side of I-26 an I-77, Blythewood is breaking in a “new” head coach after 5A Coach of the Year Dolan Crolley did not receive an upgrade to his interim head coach status with the Bengals. Travis Poole, a 20-year coaching veteran who won two state championships with schools in North Carolina, took over a team that had had been well coached by Crolley and his predecessor, Banks Faulkner, who took the team to the 5A championship series in 2019.

“I’m still learning the kids. I know we don’t have many but we’ve got a great group of young men that work hard and play together.” Poole said. “They do a good job of going to the plate with a plan and doing what we’re supposed to do in baseball, execute.”

Thus far Blythewood is 10-4 and 6-2 in Region 3-5A. The Bengals host the SC Diamond Invitational this week that features Dreher, South Florence, T.L. Hanna, Cardinal Newman, Northwestern, Chapin and Lexington.

In softball, the Bengals (8-2, 4-1) are battling with Nation Ford in trying to win a region title to go with the one they won in 2022.

This year seven seasoned teammates return: Neilah Browne, Raygan Segars, Makalah Ford, Ashley Duncan, Maya Van Zyl, and Josie Smythe.

Several new faces join those seven to form a team that has shown itself to bring good pitching into the circle and great hitting at the plate.

“We’re super excited,” Atkinson said. “We’ve got five new players that we felt could contribute and they have. They play well together, they enjoy each other. We feel like we can roll out a good lineup every single night, and we can go hit with and battle the best teams out there.”

Lexington (8-3, 3-0), which knocked out Blythewood in the playoffs last year, is in the hunt for another Region 4-5A championship—and so is Chapin (10-2, 2-1).

4A

It’s not like Airport came out of nowhere to dominate its competition thus far into the season. The Eagles have won five region championships since 2013. This season, they claimed a sixth region crown when they defeated South Aiken 8-0 March 20, becoming the first team in the Midlands to win a region title.

While Region 4-4A has been playing since early March (other Midlands regions opened in mid-March), the message from here on out is for the Eagles to keep doing what they’ve been doing, according to head coach Casey Bradwell.

“We’ve got to keep showing up, man,” Bradwell told area reporter Thomas Grant. “Whatever happened yesterday doesn’t dictate what happens the next day. Our motto is live pitch-to-pitch, and we’ve done a really good job of doing that. We’ve got some older guys who throw strikes, the defense played well, and we’ve had some timely hits. For the most part, we’ve scored about 49 or 52 odd runs in the last two weeks, so it’s been pretty good.”

With the region title in hand, the task now goes to sharpen skills for the postseason, and the Eagles will do just that at the Forest Acres Classic this week.

“we’ve got Dorman, River Bluff and Oceanside. We’re going to compete with the best in the state and see where we’re at,” Bradwell said.

3A

Gilbert (12-2, 4-0) stands atop the Region 5-3A standings after back-to-back shutouts of Swansea March 19-20 and a doubleheader sweep of Orangeburg-Wilkinson March 28. The Indians will be focusing on Dreher (11-3, 4-0) April 9 and April 12, a series that may determine who will be in the region driver’s seat.

Camden (10-3, 4-0) is also separating itself from region competition, notching a doubleheader sweep of Darlington March 26, a 17-3 victory at Lakewood March 19, and a 17-2 win over Crestwood March 12.

In softball, Swansea (5-2, 4-0) is on the verge of separating from the Region 5 field.

2A

Gray Collegiate came close to winning a state championship in 2022, but Andrew Jackson won the 2A state championship series 2-1. This year, Gray’s last as a 2A school before moving to 4A next year, the War Eagles seemed poised for a long playoff run.

“We’re playing pretty well. Our hitting has cooled off a bit right now, but that’s just because of 12 games into the season and we’re playing a lot of good teams with a lot of good pitching,” said Gray head coach Charley Assey, who won state titles with Brookland Cayce as well as with Orangeburg Prep and Mims academies. “We’re playing a lot of 3A, 4A, and 5A schools and they do a good job of pitching around certain things that our guys can do.”

Gray Collegiate softball, which won its first state championship in 2022, is 15-2 counting four forfeits. Aspen Boulware leads the team at the plate with a .692 batting average, 18 hits, four triples and six home runs and 6 runs batted in. Maddox Long has a .526 average on top of 10 hits and nine RBI. Kaylan Boudreau is batting .455 with 10 hits, two home runs and six RBI.

SCISA

Hammond (7-4, 3-1 SCISA Region 1-4A) is also off to a good start in region competition. The Skyhawks overcame a 5-2 loss to Ben Lippen March 19 to beat the Falcons 16-4 the next day. They followed up with shutouts of Heathwood Hall March 25 (10-0) and 26 (15-0).

Cardinal Newman (7-3, 2-1) may look to take the edge off the Skyhawks in a two-game series April 15-17.

The Hammond softball team (9-1, 3-0 SCISA Region 1-3A) is off to its strongest start in decades.

While head coach David Beacham knew his team was loaded with talent and potential, it took him as a bit of a surprise when the MaxPreps website had Hammond as 14^th team among the top 150 teams in the state.

“We barely crept into the top 100 last year, and at the beginning of the season they put us at 17^th,” he said. “When we moved up to 14, it’s certainly an improvement, with wins over Ben Lippen and Wardlaw. We’re having the best season that I can think of, absolutely.”

Baseball Top 10

1.    Airport 14-1

2.    Gray Collegiate 11-1

3.    Chapin 8-1

4.    Gilbert 12-2

5.    Camden 10-3

6.    Dreher 11-3

7.    Blythewood 10-4

8.    River Bluff 8-5

9.    Hammond 7-4

10. Cardinal Newman 7-3

Softball Top 10

1.    Gray Collegiate Academy 15-2

2.    Chapin10-2

3.    Blythewood 8-2

4.    Hammond 9-1

5.    A.C. Flora 9-3

6.    Lexington 7-3

7.    Ben Lippen 6-4

8.    Irmo 9-7

9.    Swansea 5-2

10. Airport 6-6