Richard Winn Holly Hill Academy SCISA 1A State Championship Series
By WORTHY EVANS
Contributing Writer
ST MATTHEWS — The Holly Hill Academy baseball team stayed true to what brought them to the SCISA 1A state championship series Thursday night at Calhoun Academy’s baseball field—good at-bats, timely hitting, and speed on the basepaths.
That formula earned the Raiders a 6-2 victory in the deciding game of the best-of-three series and the first state championship in baseball since 2016.
“It’s been our mojo all season, putting pressure on teams,” Holly Hill Academy head coach Andy Green said. “We’ve got a lot of team speed up and down the lineup, and our motive is always to put pressure on the defense. Tonight we executed when it mattered. It’s a big reason for our success tonight for sure.”
It also helped the Raiders (14-9) to have a mound presence, especially in the last two games of the series. Richard Winn (16-5) won the first game 5-3 Tuesday, but Holly Hill game 2 starter Ashton Soles pitched 6 2/3 innings and 2-hit the Eagles in a 7-2 victory Wednesday.
On Thursday, Tyler Green worked a complete-game 3-hitter, striking out six while walking just one.
Soles and Green’s time on the mound stopped the hot-hitting Eagles, 2-time defending 1A champions, cold.
“We didn’t hit the ball at all this series and that was frustrating to us because we’ve been pretty good at it all year long,” Richard Winn head coach Paul Brigman said. “You’ve got to give credit to their pitching, they really came through in game 2 and game 3 with strong pitching and we just couldn’t do a whole lot with them.”
The Eagles managed a run on no hits in the bottom of the first inning to take a 1-0 lead. With one out, a shaky Green hit D Albert, walked Charlie Bonds, then hit Johnathan Bonds to load the bases. T Burchell’s sacrifice fly scored Albert for a 1-0 lead, but Green settled in and struck out Owen Martin to end the inning.
The Raiders evened the score in the top of the second with two outs. Jake Kirven and Mason McGriff drew walks, Parker Kizer’s single to leftfield drove in Kirven, and Mason Connor’s single to left scored McGriff to give the Raiders a 2-1 lead.
Johnathan Boyd popped out to retire the side.
Richard Winn loaded the bases with one out in the bottom of the third, and Bennett Nicholson scored on Turner Burchell’s ground out to even the score at 2-2. With two out, Charlie Bonds at third and Johnathan Bonds at second, Martin grounded out to end the inning before the Eagles could take full advantage.
From the fourth inning on, the Raiders were in full control.
Holly Hill broke the tie with two outs in the top of the fourth.
McGriff reached base on an infield error, moved to second and third base as Kizer batted.
Martin, Richard Winn’s starting pitcher in his last inning on the mound, walked Kizer. As Martin pitched to Connor, McGriff scored the go-ahead run on a passed ball to make it 3-2 Holly Hill.
Martin walked Connor and Boyd flied out to end the inning, but the Raiders scored one run in each of the fifth, sixth, and seventh innings in similar fashion.
On the mound in the final innings, Connor gave up two hits while he and the Raiders defense sat down the Eagles quickly to ensure the victory.
“They worked so hard this year,” Green said. “We loaded our schedule with a bunch of triple-A schools this year and tried to be ready for this moment and with the pitching we’ve seen this year it paid off. We took our lumps playing some bigger schools with the faith that at the end of the year it would come back and matter and they just put in so much work, I’m so happy for them.”
The Raiders graduate 11 players from the team and will have three starters returning next season.
“We’ve got six holes to fill,” Green said. “The next two years are going to be a lot of opportunities for some new kids to see some playing time and develop, and we’ll just have to go from there.”
In the first game Tuesday, Richard Winn starting pitcher Charlie Bonds worked 6 2/3 innings and 2-hit the Raiders, striking out 11. The Eagles held a 5-0 lead going into the seventh inning when Bonds lost his focus on the strike zone and walked three straight batters and gave up all three Holly Hill runs.
Martin, who took the loss Thursday, came on in relief of Bonds and got the final out.
Bonds also homered in that game. Walker Blackwelder was 2-for-3 with 2 RBI.
Holly Hill saved its ace, Ashton Soles, for game 2. Soles gave up two runs on two hits in the first inning—and held the Eagles hitless for the rest of the way in the 7-2 win. He threw 110 pitches over 6 1/3 innings and struck out 10.
“We knew we both had really strong pitchers,” Brigman said Wednesday night, noting Charlie Bonds and Soles. “They saved their guy when we threw our best guy yesterday, and they put themselves in a little bit of an advantageous spot today, and he pitched well. He came through for them.”
When his pitch count reached that critical point, reliever Brayden Mizell came on and got the last two outs of the game.
“For a senior to walk off the mound like that condition knowing he can hold his head high and that he gave everything he had, I’m super proud of him for that.” Green said Wednesday night.
The Raiders and the Eagles were tied 2-2 after the first inning, but while Richard Winn kept getting stymied at each plate appearance, the Raiders got two runs in the third inning, two more runs in the sixth, and one in the seventh for the win.
Wednesday’s victory produced an energy surge for Holly Hill, Green said Wednesday night, perhaps prophetically.
“Yesterday (Tuesday) we got down big but came back and fought, carried some momentum in the last inning that kind of propelled us into today,” Green said Wednesday. “Our approach today was 180 degrees different than what it was yesterday. Yesterday we had some bad approaches, gave away some at bats swinging at bad pitches. Today we worked deep in the counts and got better pitches, and we played better defense.”
Tuesday
Richard Winn 100 040 0 – 5 7 1
Holly Hill Academy 000 000 3 – 3 2 3
WP: Charlie Bonds, 6 2/3 IP, 2H, 3R, 0ER, 5BB, 11K.
R – Walker Blackwelder 2-3, 2 RBI. Charlie Bonds HR.
Wednesday
Holly Hill Academy 202 002 1 – 7 8 1
Richard Winn 200 0000 – 2 2 2
WP: Ashton Soles, 6 1/3 IP, 2H, 2R, 2ER, 3BB, 10K
H – Johnathan Boyd 3-4, 2 RBI. Jody Gilliam 2 RBI. R – Dylan Albert 2B, Johnathan Bonds 2 RBI.
Thursday
Holly Hill Academy 020 111 1 – 6 10 2
Richard Winn 1010000 – 2 3 2
WP: Tyler Green, 7IP, 3H, 2R, 1ER, 1BB, 6K.
H – Mason Connor 304, 2 RBI. Tyler Green 2-4. R – Charlie Bonds 2-2.
