Despite losing their final 13 games of the regular season, the Columbia Academy Cougars made the playoffs, which began Monday night.
The Cougars (6-23) kicked off its three-game series against District 3 No. 1 Riverfield Academy at home Monday and will now have to win the final two games of the series to advance to the second round next week.
In Game 1, the Cougars were down three runs for much of the ball game until the sixth inning, when Logan Buckley connected for a three-run homer to tie it up. However, CA lost its cool when the Raiders got the chance to respond to Buckley’s blast, according to head coach Keith Stanley. The Raiders scored six runs to create some distance again on the scoreboard then cruised the rest of the way for an 18-7 victory.
“The thing with us this year has been that one big inning, and it hit us (Monday) night again,” Stanley said. “(Riverfield) is probably the best team we’ve seen all year, and I could see them making a very deep run if we can’t knock them out here. They’re one of the better hitting ball clubs I’ve seen this year. I told my guys (Monday) night that we went toe-to-toe with them for six innings. I think that gives us a little confidence going into Game 2. I just hope we can be resilient enough to bounce back a little bit.”
The Cougars will be on the road for Game 2 Thursday at 5 p.m., and Game 3, if necessary, will follow immediately after. If the Raiders win Game 2, it will end the series and Columbia Academy’s season.
Prior to the playoffs beginning, the Cougars matched up with Wayne Academy (20-7) for one final regular season series. Unfortunately for CA, Wayne Academy had won eight straight games going into the series, while the Cougars had dropped 10 in a row.
Although the Cougars lost Game 1 4-0 April 13, Stanley said it was one of the better games they played all year. But they had the misfortune of having to face a talented pitcher with a mid-to-upper 80s fastball that limited them to six singles and no extra-base hits.
“Game 1 of the series, we played extremely well and saw a really good arm — their SEC signee (Will Hodo, who signed to play at Alabama). We hit him well and have five or six good barrels right at them. We pitched it well and played hard,” he said. “We left too many on the bases. We have a lot of young ones here that haven’t been in big moments before. When you have runners on second and third with one out in the bottom of the fifth, that’s a big moment for a kid who has never been in that moment. I think the moment is getting a little big for our younger players right now just because they haven’t been in it, not because they don’t have the talent to handle it.”
In Game 2 April 15, Wayne pounded every pitcher the Cougars threw and used 15 hits, including a home run and four doubles, to beat CA 14-3. Robert Johnson and Holdyn Sandifer each plated a run for the Cougars, and Holton Hartzog roped a pair of singles. Game 3, which was the nightcap of a doubleheader at CA, was much of the same story as the Rebels beat the Cougars 10-2.
Stanley said the Cougars played just as hard in Games 2 and 3, but it was just one of those deals that didn’t go their way. He added that’s been the story of the Cougars for the past month and that they just haven’t had the luck to catch a big break when they need it, leading to its current 14-game losing streak.
