Lewisville Baseball Hoping For Strong Finish, Softball Teams Clinches Region Title
By Billy G. Baker
Publisher
Lewisville — Sometimes on the way to your desired destination, most teams face adversity, and how they handle it, and grow from it, goes a long way in defining where they end up once the season concludes.
The Lewisville Lions baseball team, coached by Blake Barron, lost two games to region rival McBee 7-6 and 9-3) over a four-day period in late March as Spring break began. Those two losses gave the region title to McBee and now the Lions must defeat Great Falls, in their final region game after the break to clinch second place.
Lewisville begins the month of April with a record of (7-6, 3-2).
“The past two seasons we had similar results going into a Spring break tournament at the Beach and we were able to rebound and have nice runs in the play-offs both years,” said Coach Barron. “I told the team after our 9-3 loss to McBee that we all had to re-evaluate things including myself, our coaches along with the players.
“We will play in the South Atlantic Bank tournament at St. James High between April 1-5 and we will play against three teams from New York, and one team from Virginia over that week,” said Coach Barron. “One positive about our region games getting over, for the most part, by the start of April, is that it gives us a month to refocus, correct mistakes and go into the playoffs totally focused.
“This is what we did the past two seasons and we hope we can do it again this season,” said Coach Barron. “We just have to focus better, make improvements and press on.”
Going into the second game with McBee on March, 29 the Lions had six starters batting over .300. At the top of the hit index was Clemson signee Dion Brown who was batting .385 with 11 RBI’s including three doubles and two triples. Brown is also the team’s power pitcher with his fastball in the high 80’s.
On the mound Brown (1-2) has 35 strike-outs in 17.7 innings of work and teams are batting .213 against him. He has an ERA of 2.77. In terms of wins and losses Joaquan Howze is 3-1 with 16 strike-outs in 16 .67 innings of work with a 4.62 ERA. Dylan Good went into the game with McBee with a 1-0 record, including 15 strike-outs in 11.7 innings on the mound. Bryson Shaver was 1-1 with 12 K’s in 9 innings of work. Tyson Collins was 1-0.
Other top hitters for the Lions, at the break, included Silas McFadden (.375 & two doubles), Bryson Shaver (.368, 5 RBI’s), Gavin Reynolds (.355, 9 RBI’s & five doubles), and football defensive back prospect Zach Rodgers (.353 with 11 RBI’s),
Other contributors at the plate included outfielder Ian Grissom, a solid quarterback prospect, at .333 along with first baseman Trey Smith (.286 & 10 RBI’s) and Joaquan Howze (.276).
After returning from the Spring break tournament Lewisville will play only region game against Great Falls at a time still to be determined. On April, 9 the Lions host North Central then travel to play them again on April, 12. Lewisville is at York Prep on April, 17 and host Buford on April, 18. The Lions travel to Chester on April, 19 before closing out the regular season with home-an-home games with Indian Land.
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