Needing to win just one game of a doubleheader at Copiah Academy May 5, Columbia Academy had its season come to a close as back-to-back losses led to the Cougars’ elimination.
After winning Game 1 of the series 2-1 at home May 2, the Cougars (18-11) lost 11-1 in Game 2 and 13-4 in Game 3. However, the final scores were not indicative of how competitive CA was in both games.
In Game 2, the Cougars led 1-0 after two innings and were down 2-1 at the end of the third when everything started to go downhill. Copiah tagged the Cougars for eight runs in the fourth inning to take a commanding 10-1 lead that it never relinquished.
In the series finale, CA led 3-2 at the end of the third and was down just two runs going into the top of the sixth, 6-4, before the wheels fell off in the 13-4 loss.
Stanley said in 12 innings of baseball, two big innings won Copiah the ball games and ultimately the series.
“We just couldn’t stop the bleeding when we needed to. I thought the score doesn’t represent how well we competed on the mound,” he explained. “In Game 1 (of the doubleheader), we had them on the ropes early on up 1-0 with runners on second and third with nobody out in the first inning, and we strikeout, strikeout and fly out. So we didn’t take advantage offensively and made some bone-headed plays.
“We got picked off a couple times on the bags, didn’t get to a ball in foul territory that would’ve been a big out, misplayed a ball off the centerfield wall that I thought we should’ve caught—plays that didn’t go down as errors on the scorebook but mental and physical errors that cost us. Ultimately, our timely hitting offensively wasn’t good enough for us to win. We’ve been a pretty potent offensive team for much of the season, and we couldn’t get timely hits.”
Although the Cougars didn’t reach their ultimate goal, there’s no other way to characterize CA’s season than as a massive success. A year ago, the Cougars lost 15 straight games to finish the season just 6-24. They rebounded this year to triple their win total and finish just one win shy of reaching the South State Championship series despite starting just three seniors in the field and not having a single senior pitch more than 8 1/3 innings. In fact, 67% of the innings pitched this season were by two eighth graders (Logan Buckley and Roman Lawrence) and a freshman (Owen Simmons). Their second-most used pitcher was a junior in Holton Hartzog.
“It’s a big step for our program and our school. Obviously wants to win the last one, but at the end of the day, when you take where we were as a program in 2021 and you triple your wins, raise your batting average over 100 points and drop your ERA by three or four (runs), there’s a whole lot of improvement and a bunch of stuff we can hang our hat on,” Stanley said. “Tip your hat to these kids who worked their tails off since January and who worked for everything they got.
“It starts with the seniors. They set the standard this year for all these underclassmen to see and build on. I’ve been telling everybody that, ‘Yeah, we got put out this year, but for years to come, it’s going to be a real tough battle for whoever is playing the guys in orange and blue.”
CA will be graduating its middle infield in Hays Carley and Chandler Carver, who were the top two runs producers for the Cougars offense, finishing No. 1 and No. 2 in both runs scored and RBI. The Cougars will also be losing left fielder Jacob Reid, who scored 14 runs and drove in nine, and Austin Shows.
Stanley said you can’t replace the production of those seniors, but more importantly, it’s going to be really difficult to replace their leadership. The coach said the seniors did a great job managing the clubhouse, filling their roles and making sure everyone understood their roles.
While losing those guys is a tough pill to swallow, Stanley said it’s really exciting to think about the wealth of talent returning with another year of growth and development under their belts.
“Every arm that logged major innings will return, our four district starters (Buckley, Lawrence, Simmons and Hartzog),” he said. “Mason Smith, who got hurt maybe the first Saturday of the year, had to stop pitching, so you’re looking at returning five key guys with a lot of high school innings who are still young. Then we’ve got a few other eighth graders who are turning into high school players that have just as good of stuff. Next year, we’re looking at having a very, very deep pitching staff that really is going to be tough to compete with.”
The one issue the Cougars will need to work on during the offseason is a weakness that puzzled Stanley. Later during the regular season, they started to get really long with their swings, which led to far more strikeouts during the postseason, especially with runners in scoring position. It wasn’t an issue for most of the regular season, and Stanley said the coaches are going to have to get the players to buy back into the mindset of the value of putting the ball in play.
“That’s something that us as a program, and me as a coach, we have to do a better job of going forward. With the arms we have coming, I could see us being in a bunch of 1-0, 2-0 ball games where we’re going to have to scratch across runs because we’re not going to be able to always hit a three-run homer,” he said. “We have to get back to knowing the situations and knowing what to do in those situations.”
Although Columbia Academy’s elimination spells the end of baseball and softball in Marion County this school year, there is still some hardware to be given out. Next week, The Columbian-Progress will announce the nominees for Most Valuable Player, Offensive Player of the Year, Pitcher of the Year, Most Improved Player and Breakout Star of the Year for both baseball and softball. And there are sure to be several Cougars among the nominees.
