Murphy – When Murphy baseball head coach Tyler Edwards got to Konehete Veterans Park at 3 p.m. March 21 for the Bulldogs’ game against Cherokee, it was the first time his team had seen him in six days – and for good reason.
His wife, Nikol, gave birth to the couple’s second son, Joyner, on March 17. Assistant coach Erik Laney had been leading the team in Edwards’ absence.
However, Murphy is fortunate to have a senior-laden team that wants to keep improving. They kept things going in the right direction with a 19-4, five-inning, mercy-rule win over the Braves.
“You want senior leaders who want to go out on top, it being their senior year,” Edwards said. “They’re willing to work, put in the effort to get there. Then you’ve got the assistant coaches; they’re great. I couldn’t ask for a better group of coaches to coach with.”
Edwards missed Murphy’s doubleheader against Watauga on March 16, and plans to go to as many games and practices as he can, though obviously his family comes first. The big victory over Cherokee (2-6 overall, 1-2 Smoky Mountain Conference) was a nice way to get back to baseball, with the Bulldogs (3-4, 2-0) jumping on Cherokee early and taking advantage of eight Braves errors.
Isaac Cole started the afternoon with a 1-2-3 inning, then helped Murphy jump out a 4-0 lead in the bottom of the inning. Robert Turner led off the inning with a single, stole second and came around to score on a Cole
Laney single.
Laney then stole second and came around to score on a single by Cole. John Ledford’s single to left brought home Laney, and Ledford would score on a single to right field by Mason Thrasher.
Cherokee would get two in the top of the second thanks to some shaky command by Cole, who walked four batters in the inning. A bases-loaded walk from Mato Grant scored Zac Maney and then a single to right by Emiliano Garcia scored Chaske Raines.
Hawk Reed also tried to score on Garcia’s base knock, but was thrown out at the plate by right-fielder Zach Skogen. Cole settled down after that, allowing just one hit and two unearned runs over the last two innings.
“Isaac threw the ball that one little inning there, and he immediately came to the dugout and was like, ‘Coach, I fixed it, I got it,’ ” Edwards said. “We continued to let him pitch, and I thought he did a great job by the end of the game.”
Murphy answered by stringing together seven runs in the bottom of the inning, all with two outs. A Ty Laney double to left scored two, as did a single by Robert Turner.
In between Laney and Turner’s hits, three more Bulldogs runs scored off of Cherokee errors. The Bulldogs added two more in the third, with Cole and Ty Laney both coming around to score when Isaiah Temple reached on an error.
In the fourth, when it needed just one run to put the game into mercy-rule territory, Murphy scored six. Edwards started to empty his bench in that inning, with Alex Roldan, Caleb Kephart, Dozer Mashburn, Tommy Crapse and Gio Corrales all getting at-bats. By the end of the game, all but one player on Murphy’s roster had seen the field in a game that saw Murphy bat around in three of the four innings it came to the plate.
The Bulldogs would stay undefeated in conference play with a 21-2 win at Cherokee three days later, and no matter how often he’s able to be around in the near future, Edwards wants to see his team improve and build on each game. That includes one today against a tough Rabun Gap, Ga., team., then conference games against Andrews next Tuesday and April 6 before spring break.
“We just had a conversation out there today yes we had a big win today but we’re still trying to get better because we have more wins we need to get,” Edwards said. “We want the whole team, it don’t matter who we play, every pitch every swing, every at-bat. Every play in the game, we want them 100 mph aggressive and making plays.”