A youthful Choctaw County baseball team had some good games and some not so good games in going 3-4 before the season was halted by the Coronavirus pandemic.
“We won a few games that we probably should not have won, but we definitely lost a few that we should not have lost. I call it Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” said CCHS head coach Andy Young. “You never knew which team I would put out there. We can beat anybody in the state, then we can look awfully silly. I blame a lot of that on the youth of our team.”
Players who have performed well include Connor Jewell, Landon Wells, Justin Jenkins, Micah Gammill, Wesley Vowell, and Clark Crowley.
“Connor Jewell has been a big surprise,” Young said. “He did not play a whole lot last year. He has kind of turned it up a notch. He is probably my best player right now. Defensively, he plays anywhere in the field. He even pitches a little bit for me.”
Jewell is hitting at a .348 clip. In an 8-7 victory over Nanih Waiya in nine innings, Jewell had three singles and a double, drove in three runs, and scored twice.
Wells also had a big game against Nanih Waiya with three hits and three RBIs, while pitching 4.1 innings with five strikeouts, and he homered in a 13-3 win over Kirk Academy. He is batting .364 with a double and a homer.
Jenkins is the team’s leader hitter at .375. He drove in three runs in the Kirk game.
Gammill is hitting .333. All four of his hits have been doubles, including two in a loss to Kosciusko.
Vowell, a freshman, was the winning pitcher in an 11-2 victory over Morton. He also has a team leading on base percentage of .545 with one hit and five walks in 11 plate appearances.
Crowley gives the Chargers a fifth player over .300 with a .312 average and he has a.542 on base average. In an 11-2 victory over Morton, he reached bass three times with a single and two walks and came around to score each time,
Wells is the only senior on the team. “This team is going to be really, really good in the next two years,” Young said.
If play is resumed this year, Choctaw County will compete in Region 4-3A with Aberdeen, Hatley, Houston and Noxubee County. Young feels the Chargers should battle with Houston and possibly Hatley for region honors.
Choctaw County has not played any region games. Houston and Hatley are both 2-0 in region play, Houston with two shutouts of Noxubee and Hatley with two shutouts of Aberdeen.
