Camden baseball team in battle for second place in Region 3-AAAA

           Camden – Head coach Denny Beckley knew things weren’t necessarily going to be easy for his Camden High School baseball team as it made the transition from AAA to AAAA because of realignment. Beckley was right, but it certainly hasn’t been all bad either.

           After getting to the championship game of the Lower State tournament in the AAA state playoffs and finishing with a 25-7-1 record, the Bulldogs are 12-10 oveerall and 6-3 in Region 3-AAAA after beating Dreher 10-0 on Tuesday, April 22. That leaves them in a 3-way battle for second place with York and Lancaster in which they hold the advantage.

           CHS lost twice to A.C. Flora. York and Lancaster have both played Flora, which is 7-1 in the region. York split with the Falcons while they swept Lancaster before losiing to South Pointe to fall to 5-4. Camden took two from York, however, and split with Lancaster. Camden has one game left with Dreher and two iwth Richland Northeast, teams which it should be favored over. Lancaster and York still have to face each other, so if logic plays out, Camden has a legitimate shot at second.

           The Bulldogs returned five starters from last season, four of them being on the infield. Sophomore Brady Furniss is back in the middle infield, senior Zechariah Haney is catching when he isn’t o the mound, junior Thomas Bishop returns at third and Chandler Johnson returns at first. Junior Mac Mellichamp returns as the catcher when Haney pitches and the designated hitter the remainder of the time.

           The rest of the starting lineup has Wyatt Thompson in center field, parttime starter Logan Freeman in left and Charlie Ray or Caiden McGuff in right. Clay Ridgeway will be at either short or second.

           The batting order has Thompson leading off with Furniss in the 2 hole and Haney batting third. Mellichamp is the cleanup hitter with Bishop batting fifth and Johnson sixth. Either Ray or McGuff fills the 7 hole, Freeman bats eight and Ridgeway flips the order.

           Haney, who has committed to Newberry, is the catalyst of the team, according to Beckley.

“Haney has continued to develop as a left-handed hitter and a baseball player overall,” said Beckley, who is in his 26^th season as head coach at Camden. “He was also able to have some great success on the mound last year as well.”

Haney batted .333 with 10 doubles, five triples, a home run and an on-base percentage of .434 last season. He appeared in 13 games on the mound with an earned run average of 052 in 27 innings pitched.

Right-hander Cade Marturano has been a frontline pitcher. The Francis Marion commit worked 42 1/3 innings and had a 2.98 ERA with a 5-3 win-loss record and one save.

Furniss, who started at second last year, batted .313 last year and was 12-for-12 on steals, Mellichamp batted .321.

Other members of the team are junior Dustin Bixby, junior Kameron Smith and junior Hunter Zabransky.

Along with the region schedule, Camden has faced the likes of AAAAA schools Dutch Fork, Irmo, Lugoff-Elgin and White Knoll in the regular season.

“We always try and play a very difficult schedule to prepare us for the playoffs,” Beckley said.