Lee Academy Looking For Sweep Against Andrew Jackson Academy In SCISA AA State Baseball Finals After 6-5 Win On Tuesday

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 byDavid Rankin who is now at Carolina Academy.

 Lee Academy is now head coached byDanny 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 pitcherBraydon 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 coachJason 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 afterNoah Brazell reached on an error, stole second and moved to third base on a ground-out by Brayden Davis. Brazell scored on a single byAndrew 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. AfterLandon 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 byEli 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.