Baseball playoffs
- Updated: April 26, 2024
With big contributions from younger players, Oxford ‘family’ sweeps way into third-round showdown with Mountain Brook, gets Syer to the church on time. Munford falls to Bibb County.
Second round results, pairings
CLASS 6A
Friday
Oxford 7-7, Buckhorn 4-3. Oxford (29-9) advances, will play host to Mountain Brook in third round.
CLASS 5A
Thursday
Alexandria 10-2, Lawrence County 3-0. Alexandria advances.
Friday
Springville 4-10, Southside 2-9. Springville advances
CLASS 4A
Friday
Bibb County 8-12, Munford 3-2. Bibb County advances
CLASS 3A
Thursday
Fayette County 12-10, Piedmont 2-1. Fayette County advances
CLASS 2A
Thursday
Whitesburg Christian 12-13, Donoho 4-0. Whitesburg Christian advances
By Joe Medley
East Alabama Sports Today
NEW MARKET — Oxford’s baseball team broke its huddle with an emphatic “Family!” on Friday, and Judd Syer lived on the literal and figurative ends of that.
For him to be available to perform his duties as a groomsman in bother Brody’s wedding on Saturday at 4:30 p.m., his team family had to sweep Buckhorn in a second-round Class 6A playoff series.
Mission accomplished.
Canaan Whitman gave the Yellow Jackets a win in relief and a momentum-wresting home run in Game 1, and Gavin Griner’s relief work laid the ground work for Forrest Heacock’s grand slam in Game 2 as Oxford eliminated Buckhorn 7-4 and 7-2.
The Yellow Jackets (29-9), who haven’t lost a postseason game since 2022, advanced to play host to Mountain Brook in next week’s quarterfinal series. Mountain Brook swept Mortimer Jordan on Friday.
This after the Yellow Jackets swept their seventh consecutive playoff series, including five during their run to their 6A state title in 2023.
Had Oxford split Friday, it would’ve played Game 3 on Saturday at 1 p.m., and Syer would’ve spent the day in his No. 17 Oxford uniform. No way he could’ve made it to the church on time for tux-team duties.
He never doubted that his team family would come through for him.
“I believe in our team,” Syer said. “If we play how we can play, we can beat anybody. As long as we take care of ourselves, we’ll be all right.”
Friday’s second-round series might’ve done the most to justify his faith to date.
The Yellow Jackets got big contributions from big contributors in last year’s state titles run, most notably Heacock. His grand slam on the bottom of the sixth inning of Game 2 turned a 3-2 game into a 7-2 game.
“I was just trying to hit a line drive,” he said. “Man, I’d been struggling here today, and I was just trying to make sure I could get get a pitch that I could drive and hit a line drive somewhere.”
Carter Johnson finished off Game 1 with two innings of relief. He settled down after Buckhorn loaded the bases with two a single and two walks, inducing Braden Abernathy’s infield fly and striking out Jack Rupe to end the game.
But Oxford also found difference makers in players who mostly watched as nine senior helped Oxford win its 2023 state title.
Whitman, a sophomore took the mound after Buckhorn tied the game with a four-run fourth inning and pitched two solid innings of relief, allowing no hits and one walk with one strikeout.
“It was a little nerve-racking, but I knew my defense was behind me,” Witman said. “I just tried to throw strikes and get it across the plate.”
After doubling to the left-field wall in the second inning, he ignited Oxford’s three-run fifth with a solo shot to nearly the same spot.
‘I felt good, seeing the two-seam (fastball),” Whitman said. “I saw it early in the count a couple of times in the at bat before. It started middle-in and ran right over the plate, and I just got a good barrel on it.”
Griner, a junior, came on in relief in Game 2 and got the win, allowing one hit and no runs with five strikeouts in four innings.
“I just came in and knew my role,” he said. “I was just trying to fill the zone with as many strikes as I could.
“I got as many strikeouts as I could to help my team, and I knew I had the best defense in the nation behind me.”
Oxford has won 29 games this season while trying to develop pitching depth. What better time for it to show up than the second round of the playoffs?
“Canaan came in and threw strikes like he always does,” Oxford coach Travis Janssen said. “He didn’t have his slider tonight, but he competed and threw a bunch of strikes then hit the home run. …
“Gavin Griner has been chomping at the bit to get a little bit more of a role maybe, and boy, he came in and wasn’t scared of the moment one bit. He really competed. His emotion was running a little too high there for a little while, but gosh, he did a great job. He really picked us up.”
Oxford also got a big defensive play from freshman Kainen Bozeman in the fourth inning of Game 1. The left fielder fielded J Henson’s single and fired the ball back into third baseman Rocco Maniscalco to get Rupe out at third base.
The likely kept a run off the board in Buckhorn’s biggest rally of the day.
“It is a new team,” Janssen said. “We do have a little bit of experience from last year, but it is a new team for sure, and it’s great when different guys contribute.”
It all went into the brew that freed up Syer’s Saturday for his brother and soon-to-be sister-in-law.
“I think my mom is the happiest person on the planet right now,” Syer said.
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