Notes, quotes and a thought or two.…
For Newton County baseball fans, Sunday will always be remembered as the night the lights went out in Collinsville. The Cougars held an 8-3 lead when the lights went out at West Lauderdale on Sunday night with a berth in the Class 4A championship series on the line. Nobody knows why the lights went out but they did. Many are claiming foul play but I really doubt that. But the Knights did rally and score six straight runs, including the game-winner in the bottom of the seventh to take a second walk-off win over the Cougars.
This was the second time that Newton County has played a crucial game on a Sunday. They won the last one and made it to Jackson. But this time, they came up short but they have nothing to hang their heads about. The Cougars made one of the best mid-season rallies that I can recall and I’ve been doing this for more than 30 years now. I hate that it ended the way it did for coach Jordan Smith and his players.
It’s happened to me
In my first year as publisher of The Newton Record, I volunteered to coach one of the 11 and 12-year-old baseball teams in Decatur. They were a really good group of kids and played hard for me. After coaching junior high kids for the last 10 years at Leake Academy, I realize that I really didn’t know anything. But anyway, we were playing Union in Decatur one night and they had what I thought was the best team in the league that year. We were leading 2-1 late in that game and they were coming up to bat. Somehow the lights went out in Decatur that night. We held on to take a 2-1 win and Brett Gibbs accused me of cutting out the lights that night.
He didn’t hold it against me long as he asked me to keep the book for the all-star team that year and the next. We have become good friends but he still thinks I had the lights cut off that night. I can honestly say that I don’t know what happened that night. But sometimes, accidents happen.
Warriors fall short
The East Central baseball team fell short in the Region 23 Super Regional to rival Pearl River. The two teams split blowout games in the regular season. And then something happened that I would have never imagined. The Wildcats won the first game of the series 22-1. You ask how could this happen. Well sometimes in baseball, nothing goes your way and things get out of control. The Warriors tried multiple pitchers and nothing worked. The Wildcats scored 17 runs in an inning, more than they had given up in any game this season.
The Warriors did what any good team does and flushed that game and came back to win game 2 to force a game 3. The Wildcats took game 3 in shutout fashion to claim the automatic berth to the NJCAA College World Series. Now for the second straight season, East Central’s post-season fate is now in the hands of a committee. Coach Neal Holliman thinks the Warriors have a strong case again to receive one of the two at-large bids available. I would think they have a good argument. They entered the tournament ranked No. 5 nationally and were ranked as high No. 1 in the March 10 poll and have been in the top 10 all season long.
The Warriors have been to Enid for two straight years. It really just depends on what happened in the other regions. One thing I can say that if they do get another at-large bid, anything can happen once you get there and East Central knows what it’s like to play there and that’s a big advantage for the Warriors.
Robbie Robertson is sports editor for The Newton County Appeal. You can email him at sports@newtoncountyappeal.com
