Hiawassee, Ga. – Given the last few weeks have not been the ideal way to lead into the baseball season, Hiwassee Dam baseball head coach Tommy Strickland is using some of the early non-conference games for more than just wins and losses.
Entering the season opener against Towns County, Ga., the Eagles had practiced just three days on the field due to some players still being part of the basketball team and bad weather in the area in recent weeks. Add in the fact that it’s also a really young team with only two seniors, and it wasn’t a surprise that Hiwassee Dam opened its season with a 13-3 six-inning loss to the Indians.
“Probably as was expected,” Strickland said of his team’s first game. “We’re very young still. We have two seniors, six juniors and six freshmen. So we’re very young. We made some progress tonight, no doubt, but there’s a lot still to be gained.”
Strickland liked what he saw out of the top of his lineup, which helped the Eagles jump out to a 2-0 lead in the top of the first. Senior Evan Hedrick singled on the first pitch of the game, then Trenten Beavers reached on an error on a ground ball that Towns County first baseman Kade McConnell couldn’t corral. Clay Davis scored Hedrick on an RBI single, then stole second and scored on a throwing error after he stole third later in the inning.
However, Hiwassee Dam could not take advantage of its good start, with Towns County scoring three runs immediately in the bottom of the inning. The Indians (3-3 overall) were playing their sixth game of the year, and it showed. They looked more poised, while Hiwassee Dam struggled in the field, not making the easy plays and sometimes not making the play when they needed to help out their pitchers.
It didn’t help either that early on, Towns County was able to turns some weak contact into base hits, too.
“They hit the ball to our youngest players,” Strickland said. “I don’t know how it worked out but it did.”
After a good first inning, the Eagles bats went silent until the sixth. Matthew Chastain got in a groove on the mound, striking out 13 batters in just five innings. They wouldn’t score again until the top of the sixth inning with Chastain out of the game, as Colton Berrong’s single to left scored Davis.
“He was throwing pretty hard,” Strickland said. “And not seeing live pitching until tonight was pretty traumatic for some kids.”
Towns County would respond with seven in the bottom of the sixth to send the game into “mercy rule” territory. Strickland threw Hedrick for the first two innings, Davis for the next two and junior Dawson Headley for the final two and while he thought they threw relatively well, it wasn’t enough to overcome some youth and inexperience that led to struggles in the field.
It’s the balancing act Hiwassee Dam and other local teams are having to pull off early in the season, as they try to get as many game reps as possible to make up for lack of practice time before Smoky Mountain Conference play begins. Hiwassee Dam needs to see what it has up and down its roster, and that may mean some struggles in games that could be competitive to find out who can succeed where in the games that are more crucial for success this season.
“For the most part our pitching wasn’t terrible,” Strickland said. “Our defense lacked a little bit. Top of
our lineup did pretty decent hitting for the most part. It just shows how far behind we are from not having practiced.”