Williamsburg softball, baseball teams finish second in region
Teams hoping to make playoff runs in May
Kingstree – With another young team on his hands, Williamsburg Academy softball head coach Pat Wildes is not surprised by the season his team has had to date.
“We’re about where I expected us to be,” said Wildes, who has been the head coach of the Lady Stallions for eight years. “That’s because we are young.”
So exactly what kind of year has Williamsburg had? The Stallions won 10 of their first 14 games and finished 3-3 in SCISA Region 3-AAA, good for a tie for second place. However, Williamsburg earned the No. 2 seed from the region heading into the state tournament at Patriot Park SportPlex in Sumter. The Lady Stallions beat Dillon Christian School, which it split two games with to force the tie, 11-1. Williamsburg lost to the Warriors 4-3 in eight innings, but the larger run differential gave it the second seed.
Wildes believes his team has shown steady improvement throughout the season.
“They’ve become a lot better as the season has gone along,” he said. “There have been lots of ups and downs, but I feel like we’ve moved in the right direction to this point. We had six more games left before the state tournament where we could continue to work.”
One thing that has been up all year for Williamsburg has been its pitching. That’s because of freshman Abby Ward and junior Krislyn Hanna.
When Ward was healthy last season, she was in the circle and finished with a school record 277 strikeouts. Hanna returned to the team this year after sitting out a season and has provided some valuable innings, according to Wildes.
“Pitching has been our strength,” Wildes said. “It’s kept us in all the games. All we have to do is hit the ball with the pitching that we have.
“They are both pretty similar. On any given day, it doesn’t matter with either one of them, they could pitch a great game. It’s always good to have an option. We found that out last season in the game ss where Abby was hurt and couldn’t play.”
Ward has the ability to dominate anyone at any time. In their first Region 3 contest against 3-time defending state champion Pee Dee Academy in Kingstree, Williamsburg lost 1-0 as Pee Dee pushed across a run in the top of the seventh inning. Neither team got a hit until the seventh as the Golden Eagles’ Maddie Coward shut down the Lady Stallions.
“It was a boring game,” Wildes joked.
Wildes said the maturation process is making Ward a better player.
“Last year she was an eighth-grader, this year she;s a ninth-grader,” the 42-year veteran coach said of Ward. “She’s older, a lot more mature in how she handles herself on the field.”
Wildes and his coaching staff are not sitting around and twiddling their thumbs when it comes to Williamsburg’s hitting woes.
“It runs in spells when it comes to us hitting the ball,” Wildes said. “Some days are good, some days we can’t hit.
“I don’t worry too much about defense. I don’t care how good your defense is if you can’t hit. Every day we practice on our hitting. We hit. There’s no other way to get better.”
The batting order has senior Audrey Watford leading off with Hanna batting second and senior Brayleigh Matthews hitting third. Ward is the cleanup hitter with fellow freshman Maggie Jones batting ini the 5 hole and another freshman, Riley McCrea, hitting sixth.
The bottom third of the lineup has sophomore Perry Wise batting seventh, Corrine Kellahan in the 8 hole and Katelynn Owens hitting ninth.
Position-wise, Watford is the everyday centerfielder, Matthews is the first baseman, Jones the third baseman and Wise is the leftfielder The other spots are determined on who is pitching.
If Ward is in the circle, Hanna is the catcher, McCrea is at shortstop, Owens is at second base and Kellahan is in right field. If it’s Hanna toeing the rubber, Ward plays shortstop, Kellahan is the catcher, McCrea is at second base and Owens is in right field.
When this season comes to an end, it will be Wildes’ final season as a head coach after 42 years of coaching. Wildes, who had previously been the head coach at both Carvers Bay and Andrews high schools before coming to Williamsburg, told his players a couple of weeks ago.
WILLIAMSBURG BASEBALL FINISHES SECOND IN REGION
The Williamsburg baseball team only suffered two losses in its first 16 games. Unfortunately for the Stallions, both of those defeats came at the hands of Pee Dee, giving the Golden Eagles the region title.
Though the state playoffs are still a couple of weeks away, Williamsburg has several regular-season contests remaining to be played. Being done with region has no affect on how the Stallions will handle the rest of the year.
“Every game matters.” said Stallions head coach Tyler Boyd. “These games could go a long way to deciding who is put where when they are determining the playoff brackets. You want to go out there with the mindset of winning games.”
Williamsburg lost to Pee Dee 1-0 in the opening game and 10-0 in the second meeting. Boyd, whose squad finished 4-2 in region play, is hoping the Stallions get their bats going as the playoffs approach.
“We were hitting the ball really good early in the season, but we’ve struggled a bit of late,” Boyd said. “We beat Florence Christian 4-3 the other night but we only had three hits. We’ve got to start hitting the ball better.”
