Charlie Smith isn’t taking any chances any time soon when it comes to the serious health crisis that has hit the United States.
The Winston Academy baseball coach is prepared to adhere to any recommendations that the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, the President and government have to offer. Even it means his baseball team won’t be playing for the foreseeable future.
That doesn’t mean that the veteran head man isn’t bummed about the Midsouth Association of Independent School’s ruling last week that there will be no athletic activity for at least this week. The Patriots played two games during spring break and that could be it for a while, but Smith liked what he saw.
Winston spent last Monday playing two games in two different locations and they split the decisions. To kick things off, the Patriots traveled to Decatur to the East Central Community College Spring Break tournament to take on the Oak Hill Academy Raiders in a rematch against a team that had beaten them two weeks prior 14-8.
On this day, Brylee Wall threw a gem of a game with 6.1 innings of one-hit ball and his team came up with big hits on the way to a 5-2 victory.
“Brylee Wall pitched probably one of the best games he’s pitched since I’ve been at Winston. Channing Wall has done a phenomenal job with our staff and I’ve let him do the pitching,” Smith said. “We’re seeing progress on the mound and were really excited where we were headed with some guys. We’re still so young. Their days are coming.”
Wall walked six batters, but his nine strikeouts were louder. He gave up just one hit and one earned run in a game that saw him get all the way into the final inning. The Patriots gave him offense as well as they turned a 2-1 deficit in the third to a win with a thrilling bottom of the sixth inning that had WA scoring three runs for the win.
Camden Sanders had a huge performance with his 4-for-4 day, smacking a double and a triple as he missed the cycle by not hitting one over the fence. Wall also had four hits to go along with his performance on the mound.
Right after that ball game with Oak Hill, WA came home to play against East Webster as both teams competed in the ECCC tournament and finished in Louisville. The Patriots did not play as smoothly as they did in game one and a good team like East Webster exploited some mistakes in a n 8-4 win for the Wolverines.
“We made three errors in an inning and they scored six runs,” Smith said. “We did not get a lot of timely hits in that game. We just didn’t swing it as well. We didn’t pitch bad but we misplayed a flyball and before we knew it we were down six runs.”
The fourth inning was the killer for the Patriots. Winston gave up six runs in that frame after they had taken a 4-1 lead in the game and lost it from there. Aiden Fancher threw 3.2 innings and gave up just one earned run but the six unearned runs hurt. He struck out three batters and walked two.
Josh McGinnis threw the first 3.1 innings of the game, surrendered just three hits, one run and struck out two.
Sanders’ home run that he was missing in the first game of the day came to him against EWHS as he sent one over the wall and drove in two runs. Hunter Gregory provided an RBI double in the game as well.
While the Patriots got back to .500 ahead of conference play, they won’t be playing their scheduled games against rival Heritage Academy this week and might not play any games at all for some time.
The MAIS announced the suspension of sports along with school for at least this week and it could be extended similarly to the MHSAA’s ruling on Monday that there won’t be any sports until March 29 at the earliest. There’s questions surrounding the future of this season but Smith has been staying in touch with his kids to make sure everyone is on their toes.
“I communicate with my players on a daily basis. My message to the kids was that I love them and to make sure that they’re trying to practice in as much isolation that they can,” Smith said. “We’ll check with everybody every day with fast-pitch girls and my baseball guys. You’ve just got to be safe and keep up with the knowledge that’s been put out.”
