Andrews – Both the Andrews baseball and softball teams find themselves in somewhat similar situations about a month into their respective seasons. Both teams are young, and looking to get as much experience as possible while keeping confidence up.
After beating the Asheville Trailblazers 15-10 to open the 2023 season, the Lady Wildcats have been competitive in most of their games but have not picked up a win since. Their closest calls were a pair of one-run losses to Hayesville and a 4-2 defeat at Rosman. Other games have been close before some mistakes in later innings.
The team’s anchor is senior Summer Garrett, who has been a rock in the circle. While Garrett is not a strikeout-heavy pitcher, she can get batters to induce weak contact, which puts the Andrews defense in a better position to make the right play.
“When we call on Summer, she steps up,” assistant coach Kenney Clark said. “As far as that goes. That’s about the only thing we can count on right now.”
The rest of the team remains a work in progress. Andrews only has six juniors and seniors out of the 19 players on its roster. Only two seniors are in the usual Lady Wildcats starting lineup, and it’s shown at times.
Against Hayesville, Clark said things like base-running mistakes and fielding errors were the difference. Then against Hiwassee Dam on March 28, Andrews hung around but made some mistakes before the Lady Eagles’ bats broke the game open late in a 13-0 loss.
“They’re learning,” Clark said. “We just made some mental mistakes, and we just need to go from there and build on that.”
It’s been more of a challenge for Andrews baseball. The Wildcats have seen some wild fluctuations in scores, even against the same opponent. That included last week, with a 2-1 loss at Hiwassee Dam on March 28 that turned into a 17-7 loss when the teams met in Andrews two days later.
For Wilson, it was as simple as they made the plays they needed to in one game and didn’t in the other.
“There’s days where we seem like we get it, and days where we kind of are off and seem like everything we work on we’re right back to scratch,” Wilson said. “I attribute that to the youth of the team.”
Andrews was raw going into the year, so Wilson has had to choose which things to work on each day at practice to try not to overwhelm the Wildcats with too much information. The team is communicating more on the field than it was at the beginning of the season and looks more cohesive.
However, sometimes the team’s inexperience shows, and Wilson has reminded his group that unlike other sports, in baseball everyone has a role in every play. He’s seen growth from sophomore Braxton Rickett and freshman Logan Shuler, and just wants to see if more players can get there with more experience.
It’s why, despite spring break starting Friday, Andrews will be playing Mitchell at Tuscola that afternoon, then return to Waynesville to play Enka the next day.
“It’s repetition and them getting the experience in,” Wilson said. “And the more games we can play, the better off we’re going to be.”