Carvers Bay Baseball, Softball Teams Focused On Upcoming Play-offs
By Billy G. Baker
Publisher
Hemingway—In the game of baseball, as with all sports, player development is the most important thing because it is a humbling game that can make you a well-paid professional athlete one day for just being excellent at the plate 30 per cent of the time.
Baseball has been called a game of failure thousands and thousands of times for a reason. No matter the player failure comes. The great Mickey Mantle of Yankee fame struck-out the last time he batted, with two men on, and his team down by a run. The boos came!
Late in the 2025 prep baseball season in South Carolina, the Carvers Bay baseball team is (3-11, 2-3) playing in the toughest (no doubt) Class A baseball region in the state against teams like Lake View, Johnsonville, and Latta. The two- year realignment by the SCHSL was certainly not kind to a rebuilding program like the Bears.
The Silver lining is that six-of-the seven teams in the Bear’s region will engage in the Class A baseball play-offs and that ground ball you might have bobbled in the first game of the season just might be a routine play for you 15 games later. This is certainly what Carver’s Bay head coach Shawn Patrick is counting on anyways.
“As of right now (April, 9) we are in either fourth or fifth place in the region,” said Coach Patrick. “We have three region games left with Lake View, Latta and Hannah-Pamplico, and win or lose, I just want our guys to compete, keep working on correcting mistakes, and leave it all on the field.
“Weare making contact with the ball, but we are hitting ball right at people and that has been frustrating for us,” said Coach Patrick. “We are a young team, and still working on developing confidence, and that is often a challenge when you are losing the majority of the games you have played. If we can catch a few breaks, and get some wins here at the end of the season, it will help team morale and confidence for sure.”
There have been some positive wins this season that verified “the grit and will” of the Bears to fight back from adversity. “We are down 4-2 against Hannah-Pamplico, with two outs in the top of the 7th inning and we fought back to win that game 5-4,” said Coach Patrick. “Carson Thompson led off and reached on a walk and then Kimbell Edwards singled to center to put runners on first and second. Then Landon Marsh beat out a bunt for an infield single to load the bases.
“Then Brantley Jones hit a full-count double to left field that scored all three runs to put us ahead for good 5-4,” said Coach Patrick. “We proved in that game what we are capable of doing.”
Brantly Jones was 3-for-four against H-P with three RBI’s in the huge win over the Raiders.
Another great game was a 6-5 come-from-behind victory over region foe Green Sea-Floyds. “We were down 5-4 in the bottom of the seventh when Brantley Jones hit a home run over the left-field fence to tie the game,” said Coach Patrick. “We went into extra innings and in the bottom of the 9th Kendall Moore singled, Carson Moore laid down a drag-bunt for an infield single, and then Kimball Edwards reached on a fielder’s choice with Moore forced out going to third.
“When their pitcher tried to pick off Edwards at first, he over-threw the first baseman and the ball took a strange bounce into the outfield and Moore scored all the way from second to give us a 6-5 win,” said Coach Patrick. “In this game our top hitter was Myles Matthews who went three-for-four with a double and three RBI’s.”
As of April, 10 the top three hitters for CB were 9th grader Wyatt Dennis (.333), junior Clark Jones (.312) and sophomore Myles Matthews (.269). Junior Brantley Jones leads the team with five doubles.
In the pitching department, Clark Jones has a 2.80 ERA with 37 K’s in 25 innings of work. Brantley Jones has 16 K’s in 22 innings pitched and Matthews has 4 K’s in 8.1 innings of mound duty. Thompson leads the team in stolen bases with four.
The Bears will host Williamsburg Academy on April, 15 before hosting H-P the next day in a key region game. They are at Hemingway on the 18th before hosting River View on the 24th. They close out the regular season with away region games at Lake View on the 25th and Latta on the 29th.
Carvers Bay Softball Focused On A Strong Finish To The Season
Carvers Bay head softball coach Macey Dickerson missed the pre-season with her team due to maternity leave, but she is back with the team and focused on the Bears having a strong finish to the regular season with an eye to the play-offs.
The team is currently (5-10, 3-4) headed into the final two weeks of the regular season.
“We are currently tied for third (April, 10) in our region and the last few games will determine our play-off seeding,” said Coach Dickerson. “We have battled some set-backs and injuries this season but I am proud of our players stepping up when they were needed.”
The Lady Bears are led at the plate by catcher Payton Owens (.429/7 RBI’s/2 HR), along with center fielder Ada Brooks (.383/11 RBI/3 HR). Jenna Kay Avant is also a leading hitter (.429/7 RBI/1 HR).
Avant is also the team’s main pitcher. She has pitched 43 innings in the circle with 35 K’s and just five walks. Avant is a commitment to USC Union.
Three other players are batting around .300 or better. They are junior utility athlete Savannah Miller, junior Ada Davis, and sophomore out-fielder Maggie Hemingway.
