AHSAA BASEBALL: Patriots ready for another shot at Russellville after loss in Game 1

Pike Road firstbaseman Grady Warren is unable to corral a throw as Jackson Riley dives into the bag in Russellville’s win over the Patriots on Monday at Paterson Field. (Tim Gayle)

By TIM GAYLE

Eli Clark was anxious to return to the baseball field, eager to show that a 3-1 loss to Russellville in the first game of a best-of-three championship series was not Pike Road’s brand of baseball.  

“Losing that way, at least we can say that if we play our game of baseball tomorrow like we’re supposed to, if we play half of our game, we’ll have a good shot at winning,” the Pike Road catcher said. “Because that right there was not our game.”

Even so, the game-tying run was in scoring position, one hit away from tying the game, one extra-base hit away from winning in the bottom of the seventh. Instead, Russellville closer Reed Hill got Lucas Baggett to ground out to third to end the game and the Golden Tigers escaped with a victory in the series’ opener at Paterson Field on Monday afternoon.

 The scene shifts now to Riverwalk Stadium, where the second game of the series will be played on Tuesday at 10 a.m. and a third game, if necessary, will follow at approximately noon. Russellville (41-7) will be trying to win its fourth 5A championship in the last seven years. Pike Road (29-10) will be trying to duplicate the magic of its second-round victory at UMS-Wright when the Patriots dropped the first game in the series but came back to win the next two.

“We’re down to do or die now,” Pike Road coach Allen Ponder said. “We’re down to our last game or our last two games. We just have to come out and play relaxed baseball. We can’t come out and press. When we come out and press, we make mistakes.”  

 Ponder couldn’t have been surprised. Russellville is a seasoned program that got a key two-run double from senior Jackson Lindsey in the third inning to erase a 1-0 deficit and good pitching from juniors Emitt Green and Hill, while Pike Road, in its third year as a varsity program, is making its first postseason run in the school’s first winning season. 

 Green and Baggett waged a pitching dual for most of the game, but Green had the upper hand in limiting the Patriots to three hits -- two outfield bloops by Drew Britton and Baggett in the third inning and an infield single by Clark in the sixth. 

“He does a really good job of elevating the fastball,” Ponder said. “You don’t see many guys from that arm angle elevate the fastball. Most guys who throw sidearm want to get ground balls. He wants to get fly balls. He did a great job of elevating, we did not do a good job of getting on top of the baseball and he got exactly what he wanted.”

Russellville coach Chris Heaps said Green “did not have his ‘A’ stuff today, but he was close to it. We talked about it in our team meeting, if you don’t have your ‘A’ stuff, then compete with your ‘B’ stuff and keep us in the game and give us a chance.”

Green did not allow an earned run in 6.1 innings and whether it was hit pitching or Pike Road’s hitting, the Patriots were 1 for 7 with runners in scoring position as the junior right hander seemed to stay one step ahead of the Patriot offense.

“I was having trouble with my command with my breaking ball,” Green said. “But there’s no time to pout, you’ve just got to move on, just keep going. I just tried to do my best.”

Baggett wasn’t quite as effective, but he was every bit as efficient as all three Russellville runs followed key errors by the Patriots. Baggett also pitched 6.1 innings before running out of pitching eligibility, but a throwing error and fielding error, both by shortstop Clay Slagle, was followed by Lindsey’s double to right center that gave the Golden Tigers a 2-1 lead.

In the seventh, Baggett’s throwing error on a pickoff to first base put Lindsey on third and Canyon Pace punched a pitch through the left side of a drawn-in infield for a 3-1 lead.

“He’ll tell you he didn’t have his best stuff,” Ponder said, “but it was just one of those things where he had to come in and battle. He did a great job of that. There were many situations where they probably could have blown the game open but he would make a key pitch in a key situation and get us back out of it. We just couldn’t get that big hit.”