By MONTE DUTTON
One of my favorite characters, the late Jim Beauchamp, used to welcome in the writers and sometimes say, “Boys, sometimes you’ve just got to tip your cap to the opposition.”
Then “Beech” would remove the Greenville Braves cap, with its logo that looked like a paper clip, expose his bald pate, and tip the cap grandiosely.
James Island came from behind and won the Class 4A baseball state championship, 10-7 in eight innings, on Wednesday night at Ed Prescott Field. Laurens, at least the District 55 high school, tried but failed to win the fourth state title in its history.
It wasn’t a fluke. Both teams played hard. The Trojans’ conquest was achieved in opposition to a truism of the game. James Island’s good hitting beat Laurens’ good pitching. In the two games, all the Raider hurlers worked hard. None was hapless in any way.
The James Island batters were good. Real good.
The Raiders took another step forward. Last year they reached the Upstate finals. This year they won it. Missing out on the state trophy, though, was hard.
“We’ve been going a step forward every year,” said LDHS head coach Tori Patterson. “It would’ve been nice to win it this year, though. I thought we were good enough.
“We went down there (to James Island on Monday), and they hit two home runs that were just barely over the fence. We got down to our last out [tonight], just needed one more, and they came up with three or four big hits. Just the baseball gods, man. Gotta live with it.”
The Trojans scored one run in the sixth inning and two in the seventh to tie it. Then three runs in the eighth nailed down the Laurens coffin.
The Raiders outhit James Island, 12-10, but committed three errors.
Frustrations mounted even after Laurens (26-8) took the lead when first baseman Owen Pridgen belted a two-run homer after shortstop Ben Willis led off the bottom of the second inning with a single. But the Raiders brought eight batters to the plate, with three hits and three walks, one intentional, and left the bases loaded.
James Island scored its first run, unearned, without a hit in the third inning.
Laurens added a run in the third, also driven in by Pridgen, after Coleman Coker was hit on Kyle Stock’s first pitch of the frame.
Then along came the controversial top of the fourth, when Laurens starter Asher Goss was assessed two balks against the same James Island batter, Conley Steed, who wound up popping up. Connor Dantzler opened the scoring with an RBI double, but Grayson Bennett and Dantzer both scored on the balks. James Island led for the first time, 4-3.
Patterson protested the calls, the former earnestly and the latter vigorously. The packed house erupted in bedlam. Taking photos in the dugout at the time, my first thought was Elvis: Lord, almighty, feel the temperature rising! My second was wondering what would happen right then if they made that “let the players play, coaches coach and officials officiate” announcement.
The scene wasn’t unruly, but it wasn’t happy. The crowd may have been larger than any Laurens football game I’ve covered when Clinton or Hillcrest wasn’t in town. If those fans couldn’t boo the umps, half of them wouldn’t have come. I don’t know how anyone who wasn’t at the gate could count the crowd. A good formula might be portable lounge chairs times 10. There were several hundred of those. James Island (29-3-1) brought a couple busloads. Every play brought a roar from one side or the other.
Pridgen cracked two hits, the first long-range. Catcher Bennett Edwards placed a double amidst his three hits and, like Pridgen, drove in two runs. Everyone in the lineup had at least a hit, but the Raiders left 11 runners on base.
Goss’s double tied the score, 4-4, in the bottom of the fourth, but Laurens left the bases loaded again.
With one out in the bottom of the fifth inning, Edwards doubled to center on a 1-1 count, and Hunter Nabors followed Zay Pulley home. Then Coleman Coker’s double scored courtesy runner Zee Williams and hiked the Laurens lead to 7-4.
Steed greeted Joshua Hughes, who relieved Goss, with an RBI single in the sixth. Hughes retired the first two batters in the seventh inning, but the next four reached base, and Dantzler’s two-run double tied the score.
Stow Rogers homered to lead off the eighth inning off Hughes, who took the loss, and two batters later, Taj Marchand homered off Connor Rice.
Laurens went down in order in the bottom of the eighth inning.
The third Trojans pitcher, Bennett, earned the decision with 3-1/3 innings of one-hit, shutout relief. He struck out seven of the 12 batters he faced.
Decision time is approaching. What’s next? Do I keep doing it the way I am now? Do I amend this site? Do I continue to concentrate on local sports coverage, or do I change my priorities?
I’m thinking. I’m thinking.
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