Calhoun County baseball
- Updated: March 4, 2023
Day 1 of the county baseball tournament is underway at Choccolocco Park … six games back-to-back on the signature field; scores updated as the day goes along
By Joe Medley
East Alabama Sports Today
OXFORD — The first day of the Calhoun County baseball tournament came delayed a day because of Friday’s inclement weather, but it’s produced plenty of lightning and thunder.
Through three games, play has included four inside-the-park home runs and one traditional home run.
Weaver’s Elijah Smith and Peyton Martin and Faith Christian’s Vin Montgomery and Brady Whitworth hit inside-the-park home runs. Montgomery also wowed with a leaping catch and of a liner to right field in the 13th-seeded Lions’ victory over No. 12 Wellborn.
Wellborn’s Brennan Talley ripped a two-run home run over the right-field wall on Choccolocco Park’s signature field.
Here’s a rundown:
PLEASANT VALLEY 13, SAKS 3: The Raiders and Wildcats played a county-tournament game that started on Saturday. The last of six games played back-to-back on the signature field ended on Sunday.
It ended in the bottom of the sixth inning, with Samuel Duncan’s run-scoring single and Duncan inducing a rundown that let John Garrett Bryant score at 12:02 a.m.
Knowing the rule that wouldn’t let umpires start another inning past midnight, Pleasant Valley coach Chris Youngman called for aggression on the basepaths to get the final two runs needed to force a run-rule ending.
“I said, ‘Hey, I don’t care what happens. We’re going to score two,'” Youngman said. “We get our leadoff on and can’t get the next guy. When John Garrett got to first, I was yelling to Coach (Dalton) Turner, ‘I don’t care what happens. We’re going.’
“I just waved him, and I heard John Garrett come around, and he was like, ‘Really?’ I was like, ‘Yeah. You’re going. We’re going to end this right now.'”
As a result, the two teams won’t have to come back Monday and play the top of the seventh.
“The umpire said it was an official game after six (innings),” Youngman said. “I don’t know. If he (Saks coach Wes Ginn) contested it, I don’t know what would’ve happened.
“I’ve never been in that situation, but I know (Wellborn principal) Andy (Carpenter) did a good job today, trying to get all of the games in. I know it’s hard to get six games in in one day.”
Zeke Curvin led Pleasant Valley at the plate, going 2-for-3 with a double, three RBIs and two runs. Duncan and Holt Bentley each drove in two runs.
Connor George got the win for Pleasant Valley, allowing two hits with 12 strikeouts. All three Saks runs and both hits came in the third innings.
The teams combined for eight hits.
“They put it in play a little bit better than we did, and that was the difference in the game,” Ginn said.
WHITE PLAINS 13, JACKSONVILLE CHRISTIAN 8: Dawson Taylor has his share of rotten memories on Choccolocco Park’s signature field. He finally made a good one Saturday.
The second-year White Plains coach got his first victory in four tries on the park’s featured field, either as a Central-Clay player or coach. That includes the first game played at the park, in 2016.
“After playing the first game ever on this field, never won one on this field until tonight,” Taylor said. “Glad to finally get that off my back.”
Oxford beat Central-Clay 6-5 in the first game on the signature field.
“We were up 5-4, and a guy played one kind of off his hip in the top of the sixth, and they scored two,” Taylor said. “Me and this field, I’ve never liked coming up here because I’ve ever never been able to win one here.”
The Wildcats lost twice on the signature field last year. Saturday’s game marked Taylor’s fourth try, and the eighth-seeded Wildcats beat No. 9 JCA to earn a quarterfinal shot at top seed Oxford on Monday on the same field.
Braxton Curles led the way offensively for the Wildcats, going 2-for-3 with a double and three RBIs. Luke Richardson and Aiden Kilgore each hit a double, and White Plains got an RBI apiece from Cooper Tinney, Brock Burns, Flynn Tillison and Paul Laube.
Kilgore and Tinney combined to allow four hits and two earned runs.
As for JCA, Cam Moses and Tyler Doggrell each had two RBIs the Thunder, and Noah Lee led off the game with a double.
Seven walks and three errors hurt the Thunder, which led 1-0 after the top of the first and 7-6 after a four-run fourth. White Plains took the lead for good with five in the bottom of the fourth.
“I felt like we had a chance,” JCA coach Tommy Miller said. “We made some mistakes that cost us in some costly places, and they always do. If you can stay away from walking and making errors in baseball, you have a chance to win every time.”
OHATCHEE 16, FAITH CHRISTIAN 5: Devin Howell and Bryce Noah drove in three runs apiece, and fifth-seeded Ohatchee finished off Faith Christian in five innings to earn a quarterfinal shot at Jacksonville on Monday.
Noah went 3-for-3 with a double and three runs, and Howell was 2-for-2 with three runs.
The Indians also got two RBIs apiece from Will Folsom and Tyler Green, who hit a double.
“The guys come out and hit the ball well today and took care of business like we felt like we should,” Ohatchee coach Blake Jennings said. “It was a quick game, hour and 24 minutes.
“We’ve got to clean it up on defense. We’re making too many throwing errors.”
Ohatchee will play No. 4 seed Jacksonville on Monday at 4:30 p.m.
“Jacksonville is going to be tough,” Jennings said “They’ve got a bunch of guys that swing it well. They’re coming off of a basketball state championship (Friday), and they have two or three guys that were on that team, but they’ll be tough. They always are.”
Whitworth let and way for Faith, going 2-for-3 with two runs. Carson Limbaugh and Montgomery each drove in a run.
Faith beat Wellborn 14-9 earlier Saturday before falling to Ohatchee. Alexzander Almanza got the win against Wellborn, allowing 16 hits but only six earned runs with four strikeouts.
“Man, it was just nice to get a win,” Faith coach Joshua Ray said. “It’s nice to get that first win out. We came out kind of lackadaisical in that second game, but we had some good at bats.
“Alex was great on the mound that first game. He kept us in it.”
FAITH CHRISTIAN 14, WELLBORN 9: Montgomery considered his leaping catch a spectacular mistake.
“That was completely a bad approach,” he said. “I shouldn’t have walked forward. You’re always supposed to take a step back and took about three steps forward. I just barely caught it.”
Whatever guilt he felt went away in the next at bat, when he shot a ball to right-center field and rounded the bases.
“Phenomenal,” he said. “I just looked at coach, and he was telling me to go, go. I just booked it. I didn’t look at the ball, where it was going. I didn’t look at the catcher. I just looked at home. That’s where I was going.”
Whitworth’s inside-the-park home run was part of a larger offensive performance. He went 3-for-3 with three runs and to RBIs.
Faith also got two hits apiece from Almanza and Kash Sharma. Almanza doubled and drove in three runs, and Sharma had two RBIs.
Jayden Smith didn’t have a hit but drove in two runs.
For Wellborn, Jackson Clark went 4-for-5 with an RBI, and Ethan Carroll was 3-for-4 with an RBI. Zachary Pressley drove in three runs while going 2-for-4.
Talley had two his on the day with three RBIs. His shot over the right-field fence was happy surprise.
“It was a 3-1 count, and I was power swinging,” he said. “If I like it, I go. I got under it a good bit, but it carried and went out.”
Faith moved on to play Ohatchee in the game following its victory over Wellborn, which went 0-1 in the tournament.
“We’re a real young bunch,” first-year Wellborn coach J.D. Phillips said. “We haven’t really gotten it all together yet. We’re just trying to find people to play positions and really just trying to get me a lineup together, because I’ve got people all over the place.
“I don’t have a senior on the team, so we’re really struggling with leadership and stuff, but we have a few guys coming around to it. Just trying to get better every day.”
DONOHO 9, WEAVER 2: Nic Thompson came up from his slide after hitting the three-run triple that broke open the game in the bottom of the sixth inning, slammed his batting helmet on the ground and let out a primal scream.
Thompson’s hit made it an 8-2 game, and and Lucas Elliott followed with an RBI double to provide the final margin. His celebration teetered on the ejection threshold and won him stern words from Donoho coach Steve Gendron.
“We were all kind of dead the whole game, so I got a little electric there,” Thompson said. “I tried to spark some energy there, but it kind of backfired on me.”
Thompson finished 2-for-3 with three runs and three RBIs. He also worked three scoreless innings of relief, allowing two hits and no walks with five strikeouts.
Hayes Farrell pitched the first four innings, allowing three hits, four walks and two earned runs with six strikeouts.
Peyton Webb went 1-for-3 with two runs and two RBIs.
Donoho broke a 2-2 tie with two runs in the third then added a run in the fifth, setting the stage for the four-run sixth.
The victory earned the sixth-seeded Falcons a quarterfinal matchup with No. 3 Piedmont on Monday at 6:30 p.m. The Falcons will likely either Webb or Blake Sewell, Gendron said.
“It’s going to be a good matchup,” Gendron said. “They’re a good team. Obviously, they’ve had a whole lot of success. I think we’re a good team, too, so we’re looking forward to competing against them on Monday.”
For Weaver, Christian Marturello went 1-for-3 with an RBI, and Dalton Homesley was 2-for-3.
The Bearcats finished the county tournament 1-1, having beaten Anniston 19-9 right before playing Donoho.
“We got better today,” Weaver coach Jeremy Harper said. “I thought the first few innings against Anniston, we were lethargic. We were just slow getting going, and then we had a big inning, and that sparked us for the remainder of the day.
“We barreled some balls up against a good 2A team in Donoho. I knew they were going to be competitive, and we competed until the very last inning, when we just got behind in some counts, but we played decent, which is promising for area play and the rest of the season.”
WEAVER 19, ANNISTON 9: Smith hit a walk-off, inside-the-park home run, and Weaver ended it with a six-run fifth inning.
Martin also hit an inside-the-park homer and finished with two hits and two RBIs.
Jaxson Bryant went 3-for-4 with two runs and three RBIs, and Weaver got two hits apiece from Smith, Homesley, Marturello and Zack Garner. Homesley hit a triple and Smith a double.
Rabon Kirk went complete on the mound, giving up one earned run. He also finished with two hits, including a double, and four RBIs.
Dylan Goodson, Andrew Nelson and Rasheed Coleman each had a hit and RBI for Anniston.
“We did good, but we just had too many errors in the field,” Anniston coach Casey Whitfield said. “We could’ve done better, if we didn’t have those errors in the outfield.
“That’s the best we’ve hit the ball, though.”
Updated Calhoun County baseball tournament schedule
Choccolocco Park
Saturday‘s results
Signature field
No. 11 Weaver 19, No. 14 Anniston 9
No. 6 Donoho 9, Weaver 2
No. 13 Faith Christian 14, No. 12 Wellborn 9
No. 5 Ohatchee 16, Faith Christian 5
No. 8 White Plains 13, No. 9 Jacksonville Christian 8
No. 7 Pleasant Valley 13, No. 10 Saks 3
Monday
Choccolocco Park
No. 4 Jacksonville vs. Ohatchee, 4:30 p.m. (field 8, pod 4)
No. 2 Alexandria vs. Pleasant Valley, 4:30 p.m. (signature field)
No. 3 Piedmont vs. Donoho, 6:30 p.m. (field 8, pod 4)
No. 1 Oxford vs. White Plains, 6:30 p.m. (signature field)
Tuesday
Choccolocco Park
Semifinals
Signature field
Alexandria/Pleasant Valley vs. Piedmont/Donoho, 5 p.m.
Oxford/White Plains vs. Jacksonville/Ohatchee, 7 p.m.
Thursday
Rudy Abbott Field
Championship, 7 p.m.
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