By Dennis Brunson Hssr.com Associate Editor Manning – The Dorchester Academy baseball team came into the SCISA AA state playoffs with a 7-13 overall record. The Raiders’ run in the playoffs came to an end on Thursday with them sporting a 13-15 record – oh, yeah – and the state championship trophy. DA beat defending state champion Lee Academy 9-5 in the third and deciding game of the best-of-3 championship series at Laurence Manning Academy’s Tucker Belangia Diamond . “These guys here we struggled all season long, but we never lost our composure,” said Dorchester head coach Brent Jackson . “We just came out here in the playoffs and started playing baseball like we should have.” The Raiders won their second title in three years, claiming the 2024 crown. Jackson pointed out an important distinction. “We just had one guy back from that (’24) team,” he said. “This was a new bunch of guys who did it.” The Cavaliers, who finished the season with an 18-6 record, jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first. However, DA broke through for four runs in the third. LA got within 4-2 in the fourth only to see Dorchester match the run in the top of the fifth. Lee put up two in the bottom of the inning to cut the deficit to 5-4. That set the stage for Raiders senior third baseman Wyatt Byrd . DA’s Reed Almers reached on an infield single to start the top of the sixth. He was forced out on a fielder’s choice, and it appeared Cavaliers relief pitcher Myles Frye had the second out when he got Landon Holly to pop up in foul territory down the first base line. The ball wasn’t caught though, thus extending the at-bat. That would be fatal for LA. Holly came through with a single before Warren Judy struck out for what would have been the third out. Instead, it was just the second and that brought the right-handed swinging Byrd, the No. 5 hitter, to the plate. He lofted a fly ball right down the right field line. The outfield on Tucker Belangia Diamond is pretty spacious with the exception of down the two lines, with right reaching 295 feet. Byrd’s poke ended up clearing the fence for a 3-run home run that made it 8-4. “When I hit it I thought I had a double,” said Byrd, who not only hit his first homer of the season but also hit a homer in his final high school at-bat. “I just got very excited when I saw it was a homer.” Lee head coach Danny Price couldn’t undersell the significance of that scenario. “If we make that play we’re getting out of the inning without them scoring,” Price said. “If we do that, then we really have the momentum going for us. But baseball can be a funny game.” Dorchester would add another run as John Quattlebaum drew a walk, went to third on an Abe Shuler single and stole home to make it 9-4. Lee got a run back in the bottom of the inning, but Judy retired the side in order in the seventh to get the complete game. “I was just out there competing,” said Judy, who finished the game with 90 pitches. “I wasn’t getting a lot of strikeouts. I was just relying on my defense, and they did a great job.” Judy allowed seven hits, but didn’t walk a batter while striking out four. “Warren pitched a heck of a game,” Jackson said. “He just went out there and battled.” The Raiders finished with 12 hits, all of them coming over the last five innings. Shuler led the way in terms of hits, going 3-for-4 with one run batted in. Byrd was 2-for-4 with four RBI and one run scored. Holly was 2-for-4 with two runs and an RBI, while Judy was 2-for-4 with an RBI and a run. Austin Varn had a hit, two runs and an RBI, Carter Beeks had a hit and two runs, and Almers had a hit, a run and an RBI. “We got the clutch hits when we needed them,” said Jackson, whose team didn’t hit a home run in the regular season but hit four over the course of the eight playoff games. Olson had two of LA’s seven hits to go with a run and an RBI. Chance Entzminger had a hit, two runs and an RBI, Andrew Bowers had a hit and an RBI, and Cash Holloway had a hit and a run. Tucker Rogers and Aiden Fitzgerald each had a hit, while Frye scored a run and picked up an RBI. “We had a great season,” Price said. “We hit and pitched well most of the season, but we just didn’t seem to play our best in this series. You have to tip your cap to them (Dorchester). They played well.” Lee got out to the 1-0 lead in the first when Entzminger reached on a 1-out error, stole second and scored on an Olson single. Tyler Gilbert started on the mound for the Cavaliers. He walked Almers to open the game before retiring six batters in a row. However, he walked Beeks to begin the third and wasn’t as lucky this time around. Gilbert struck out Bryce Marchant before getting Almers to hit a ground ball. All hands were safe on an error, and Varn and Holly followed with RBI singles to make it 2-1. Judy had a ground-rule double to drive in a run, and Byrd followed with a sacrifice fly to make it 4-1. LA cut the lead to 4-2 in the fourth. Olson singled with one out, reached third on an Aiden Fitzgerald single and scord on a sacrivifce fly by Frye. Dorchester got the run back in the fifth when Judy and Byrd started the inning with singles. Shuler followed with a 1-out single to score courtesy runner Graham Varnadoe . Holloway led off the Lee fifth with a single and was sacrificed to second by Cary Privette . Entzminger delivered Holloway with a 2-out single, and Bowers followed with an RBI single to cut the deficit to 5-4.

Pee Dee softball after 5th straight title; Laurence Manning softball, Hilton Head Christian baseball after 3 in a row.

By Dennis Brunson Hssr.com Associate Editor Bishopville – Both the boys and girls basketball teams for Lee Academy got off to 1-3 starts, but neither of the head coaches are close to making a determination on what the season holds for their squads. “I am really excited about the team we have for this season,” said boys head coach Kemp DeWitt , who is in his second season at Lee. “We return four players that gave us crucial minutes last season. Brayden Davis , Cain June , Gavin Makela and Paxton Greene give me a solid base surrounded by the new faces we have this season. “We look to find our identity as a team before we head into Christmas break, so we can come out strong when region play starts.” Davis, a sophomore point guard, and June, a senior small forward, are the two returning starters. Davis was averaging 9.3 points per game, while June was scoring at a 9.0 clip. Makela is a junior center while Greene is a senior shooting guard. The other starter is junior power forward Aiden Fitzgerald . Greene was averaging 6.3 points, Fitzgerald 3.5 and Makela 1.6. Other members of the boys team are senior Collins Drayton , junior Cannon Hopkins , who was averaging 5.0, junior Tucker Rodgers , junior James Watson , junior Matthew Inabinet and junior Keegan Gainey . Girls head coach Kim Langston , a decades-long veteran of the SCISA wars, said she hadn’t seen enough of her team to form an opinion. The Lady Cavaliers are young with just one senior starter in Mazie Tomlinson . The other starters are junior Mallori Frye , sophomore Karagan Melton , freshman Kaisley Melton and eighth-grader Beth Whiteside . Karagan Melton was the leading scorer with a 9.5 average to go with 3.8 rebounds. Tomlinson was averaging 6.3 points, 3.3 steals, 4.3 assists and 9.5 boards, Whiteside was at 5.0 points, 1.0 blocked shots and 6.8 rebounds, Frye was averaging 2.0 points and 3.3 rebounds, and Kaisley Melton was averaging 2.3 steals, 2.3 points and 2.5 rebounds. The rest of the roster includes sophomore Emma Beasley , senior Sara Bell , senior Zana Brazell , senior Raylee Catoe and junior Addie Grace Wilkes . 4 CAVALIERS FOOTBALL ALL REGION The Lee football team had four players selected to the All-Region 1-Class A team. The selections were wide receiver/linebacker Cain June, senior quarterback/defensive back Andrew Bowers , senior offensive lineman/defensive lineman Hampton Layton and senior linebacker/running back Tucker Boyce .

Six Cavalier softball players All-Region selections

By Billy G. Baker Publisher Ehrhardt —Despite being out-hit 6 to 2, the visiting Lee Academy Cavaliers took advantage of several errors to defeat Andrew Jackson Academy 6-5 in game one of the SCISA AA state finals on May, 13 th . The two teams will meet again at 7:30 p.m. today at Lee Academy (Bishopville) and if the Cavs win it will be their first state baseball title since 2019 when they were head coached by David Rankin who is now at Carolina Academy . Lee Academy is now head coached by Danny Price , who was an HSSR All-State selection in 1991 when he graduated from Lee Academy and he also played in the HSSR- SCISA Challenge all-star game after graduation. Lee Academy is expected to throw left-handed pitcher Braydon Davis today. He is 6-0 with 57 K’s in 40-1 innings of work. AJA is expected to throw Channing Terry who is 2-0 with 45 K’s in 42.2 innings of work. After the game on Tuesday, Coach Price told the HSSR, “Other than the 6 th inning I felt like we played fairly well on both sides of the ball,” said Coach Price. “All season long we have pitched Fyre earlier in the week and then our lefty (Braydon Davis) pitches the next game and that is what we plan to do at home on Wednesday. “I was an assistant with David Rankin when we last won a state title back in 2019 when my sone was on the team,” said Coach Price. “We hope to play well at home tomorrow and win a state championship.” AJA head coach Jason Mathys told the HSSR after the game, “Other than that one bad inning I felt like Landon (Johnson) pitched well enough for us to have won the game,” he said. “The errors hurt for sure. We have scored a lot of runs on our aggressive base running this season and our speed on the base paths have been one of our strengths on the season. However, it caught up with us in the 6 th inning. Those two outs in the bottom of the 6 th hurt our chances for sure. “We will pitch Channing Terry at Lee on Wednesday and we hope he pounds the strike zone,” said Coach Mathy’s. “We must also cut out these errors also.” Against AJA, Lee Academy scored one run in the first inning after Noah Brazell reached on an error, stole second and moved to third base on a ground-out by Brayden Davis . Brazell scored on a single by Andrew Bowers . In the top of the 4 th inning the Cavaliers plated four runs to go ahead 5-0 as they sent 10 batters to the plate against starting pitcher Landon Johnson . After Landon Olson and Tyler Gilbert began the inning with back-to-back walks. A two-base throwing error scored Olson and Gilbert on a mis-handled bunt put down by Tucker Rodgers to make it 3-0. The next two batters struck-out. Then Carson Davis singled in Rogers to make it 4-0. After two back-to back walks to Brazell and Braydon Davis a single by Bowers made it 5-0. In the bottom of the 4 th , AJA pushed across a run. Johnson reached on a hit-by-pitch and scored two batters later on an RBI single by Eli Mathys to make it 5-1. In the top of the 5 th Lee Academy added a very important insurance run that ended up being the difference in the game. Rodgers reached on a hit-by-pitch, stole second, and scored on a throwing error to make it 6-1. In the bottom of the 5 th AJA plated two runs to trail 6-3. Kaiden Kinard struck-out, but the catcher dropped the ball and he was able to reach first safely ahead of the throw. Kinard then stole second and scored on Jack Walling’s single. Walling stole second and third and scored on a fielder’s choice RBI by Channing Terry to cut the deficit to 6-3. In the bottom of the 6 th inning, it was a picture of good and bad for the Warriors. Brad Hightower and Mathys led off with back-to-back singles, and then Hall Sease drew a walk to load the bases with no-outs. Hayden McClung singled in Hightower to make it 6-4 and then Kinard then drew a bases loaded Rbi walk to bring in Mathy’s and a heads up play by Sease made it 6-5 when he ran in right behind Mathy’s on a throwing error. Then two AJA runners got hung-up between second and third and first and second (on the same play) and both were tagged out by an alert Cavalier defense resulting in two- outs when the situation could have been a score of 6-5 with runners on second and third with no-out. The next AJA batter grounded into the third out and the 6-5 score help up for a Lee Academy victory.

Game 1 of the SCISA Class A Baseball Championship series, Andrew Jackson Academy at home facing Lee Academy . Enjoy this sample of images, click the link here for the full gallery.

The SCISA Baseball playoffs are in the final semi finals and here are the updated brackets. 

Mazie Tomlinson selected as Region 1 Player of the Year