AISA BASEBALL: Autauga Academy advances to finals with win over Macon East
Autauga Academy celebrates the win over Macon East on Thursday. The Generals advance to face Edgewood Academy in the Class AA championship series beginning Tuesday at Paterson Field. (Tim Gayle)
By TIM GAYLE
CECIL -- After two games that featured 28 runs a day earlier, one hit would define the third game in the best-of-three semifinal series between Autauga Academy and Macon East Academy.
After a season full of clutch hits and explosive offensive numbers, Macon East Academy’s final 11 at-bats with runners in scoring position failed to produce a hit.
It was Will Traywick’s bases-clearing double in the second inning that produced all the runs in Thursday’s game as Autauga Academy defeated the Knights 3-0 in the final game of the semifinal series.
Autauga (18-10) will face arch-rival Edgewood in a best-of-three Class AA championship series that opens with a doubleheader at Paterson Field on Tuesday at 3 p.m. A third game, if necessary, will be played on Wednesday.
And in a career that includes five years at New Life Academy and 15 years at Edgewood, Autauga coach Bobby Carr’s 21st baseball team is the unlikeliest of state championship contenders in his coaching career.
“I know we’ve got a tough task,” Carr said. “When I left Edgewood, all those seniors were seventh graders and they’ve probably been playing varsity all those years. They’re a really good team and Justin (Jones) is a good coach. I’ve known him for years from the time he played at Stanhope Elmore.
“Who would have thought Autauga playing Edgewood in the state championship game? I think everybody expected Edgewood, but no one expected us. We were the runner-up in our region and fought all the way through the bracket.”
It came together on Thursday, just as it did the previous Friday at Patrician, with the help of sophomore hurler Noah Ray, who gave up his share of hits against the Knights but continued to battle out of trouble with the help of a defense that committed no errors and an impatient Macon East offense that helped Ray out.
“He does a good job of mixing it up,” Macon East coach Bob Pickett said. “The kids salivate, wanting to hit it, but I watched him last week do the same thing in the ‘if’ game. He doesn’t have a lot of velocity, but he mixes his arm angles up and pounds the (strike) zone and people are undisciplined. We were undisciplined out there today. I wish we could have been more disciplined. I probably had one or two bats that were disciplined. But hats off to him.
“Hats off to their team. Bobby does a great job. We’re both real young, but they came over here and got the job done.”
Carr gambled a little putting Ray back on the mound at Patrician after he took a beating in the early innings of the second game, but it was no gamble at Macon East.
“He threw 24 pitches and he was out in the first inning (last week),” Carr said. “Then he goes seven innings the next day. I thought he showed a lot of guts and a lot of heart (on Thursday). That kid knows how to pitch and he’s just a 10th grader.”
The sophomore had the proper mindset when he took the mound on Thursday.
“I went to Patrician last week, knowing I had changed my arm slot,” he said, “but you’ve got to maintain that confidence that you’re going to go in there and get every single one of those batters out.
Jack Jones rolled a single through the middle with Khamani Driver on second base in the second inning, moving him to third with one out, but the next two Macon East batters failed to produce a run, starting a trend that would continue through each of the final five innings. Leadoff doubles by Colby Cox in the third and fifth innings and a one-out double by Luke Noffsinger in the sixth left runners stranded on second base each time by one of the most potent offenses in the state.
“We had some chances,” Pickett said. “I think we got the leadoff man on second three times and never moved him a step.”
Macon East ends the season at 27-11 after a team that averaged 8.9 runs per game was shut out for only the third time this season. It was an emotional locker room that bid farewell to seniors, Stone Yarnell, Tanner Moore, Cox, Kirkland Pugh, Shelton Lee and Landon Mobley.
“Nobody picked us to be here, starting five sophomores and a freshman,” Pickett said. “A lot of times, we played more (underclassmen) than that, but the seniors were an integral part of this team, probably the best senior leadership I’ve had. People were wrong. This team believed they could win and that went a long way. They had great team chemistry and I am proud of the year they had.
“Nobody picked me or Bobby and Autauga to be where we’re at and we’re sitting here playing the ‘if’ game to see who plays for a state championship.”