PREP BASEBALL: St. James sweeps Pike Road in area play

Action from Friday’s matchup between St. James and Pike Road in Class 3A Area 5 play. (By Tim Gayle)

By TIM GAYLE

Coronavirus? It was in the back of a lot of minds at Friday’s St. James-Pike Road baseball series.

“It’s kind of sad how we’re having to cancel everything,” St. James senior Brock Woodham said. “I knew if God wanted us to play, we’d get to play. I think a lot of guys on our team were like that. If we get to play, let’s make the most of it.”

Woodham had four plate appearances and drove in a run in each at-bat, including the game winner in the bottom of the seventh as the Trojans defeated the Patriots 6-5 to sweep the 3A Area 5 series.

St. James improved to 3-1 in the area standings to keep pace with Montgomery Academy and the Trojans own the tiebreaker should the two teams finish tied. Pike Road (3-6) dropped to 0-2 in area play.

In the second game of the doubleheader, the Trojans took the tiebreaker with a 16-4 win over the Patriots. Zac Russell led the Trojans with two hits and seven runs batted in, which included a three-run blast over the left field fence in the third inning.

Ethan Beard collected three hits and a run batted in. Tyson Eley had a pair of hits on the day and picked up the win with six strikeouts in 4.2 innings. 

The series started on Thursday with St. James beating Pike Road 14-5 with some offensive and pitching help from Carson Howard. On Friday, it was Woodham at the plate and Woodham on the hill, outdueling Easton Wilcoxson for the win. 

“We had to play a little scrappy,” Woodham said. “Whenever we have Carson on the mound, he really helps us and gives us a lot of confidence. And their pitcher did a good job. He’s a scrappy pitcher, too, and they play good baseball.”

Pike Road had a 3-for-3, three RBI performance from Baron Brack, but Wilcoxson’s first-inning double was the only other hit for the Patriots, who hit into a pair of double plays in the final four innings.

“We got a gutsy performance out of Easton,” Pike Road coach Skipper Jones said. “We needed somebody to come in and do something like that. He pitched well enough to give us a chance to win. A ball here or there falls for them and that’s baseball.”

Woodham held the Patriots to just four hits, but four errors allowed four unearned runs to cross the plate as the two teams matched runs for most of the afternoon.

“He just kept on battling,” St. James coach Keith Lucky said. “He’s a senior. He’s stepped it up three-fold this year. He’s leading our team at the plate. He has stepped it up.”

Howard tripled and scored on Woodham’s sacrifice fly to tie the game after Pike Road scored a pair of runs in the first; a bases-loaded walk to Woodham in the third was followed by a wild pitch to knot the score at 4-4; and Woodham reached base on a fielding error in a drawn-in infield in the fifth to tie the game again at 5-5.

In the seventh, Ethan Beard reached base on an error, Alex Whisenhunt reached base on a bunt, Howard followed with a bunt single to load the bases and Woodham’s grounder to shortstop Griffin Robinson allowed Beard to beat Robinson’s throw to the plate to end the game.

Lucky couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief after the news earlier in the day.

“I was holding my breath,” Lucky said. “I was hearing about MPS closing down. We were able to get these in. The state (Alabama High School Athletic Association) wanted us to get these area games in and that had a lot of influence on us going ahead and playing it. Now, we’ve got two series under our belts.”

No one knows whether AHSAA officials will resume the season in April, but the Trojans certainly feel a lot more comfortable with a 3-1 record in area play.

“It’s huge because there’s a lot of uncertainty about our schedule,” Woodham said. “A lot of people have been making things up and we don’t know what’s going to happen. They might take whatever region games you’ve played, that’s who gets in, so to get these two wins over a rival was big.”