High school teams take stage in big park

Most people will say that a baseball field is a baseball field, but for the smaller high school teams, stepping onto the field at the Ballpark in Jackson brings some differences.

The bases are a little further apart, the outfield fence is a little deeper and the gaps on the field are a little wider.

On Friday afternoon, two local high school baseball teams took to the field where the Jackson Generals play their home games for the third time this season.

In the first two games, Adamsville defeated Madison and Jackson Christian and Bartlett tied through eight innings.

On Friday, it was a chance for two of the smaller schools in the area to take the field at the Ballpark in Jackson with Sacred Heart and Bradford.

"This was an awesome opportunity for our kids to come out and play on this nice of a field," Bradford coach Phillip Tyler said.

Sacred Heart is in its fourth season of having varsity baseball, so the Knights are finally at a point of having depth and the knowledge to play to the bigger field.

"We are a little younger," Sacred Heart coach Joe Jarquin said. "This is a new season, and we have some newness after losing three seniors. We haven't been out on a big field like this, but I think they did very well with the atmosphere."

Sacred Heart went with Austin Winkelman on the mound, and he is a senior and was selected to the All-West Tennessee Second Team last season.

"The outfield is really big, so there were a lot more gaps," Winkelman said. "You have to make the pitches count, so you have to hit those outside corners and inside corners."

Bradford has a young team that at one point had two eighth-graders on the field, so the field might have seemed even bigger for them.

"It was hard to adjust to because we haven't gotten to play at the big fields we usually play at during the season like Union City," Tyler said. "Most of these kids have never played high school baseball, so it is a new adjustment for them every game that we play."

Mistakes are to be expected as players sometimes struggle with the depth difference or how a ball will hop on the more manicured field. But Sacred Heart limited those mistakes and held Bradford to one run.

"We have been solid," Jarquin said. "In our earlier wins this week over Liberty and Middle College, we didn't make a single error."

Winkelman gave props to his catcher Riley Greer for throwing two baserunners out and leading the defense.

"When someone got on base, we really tried to make up for it," he said. "We tried to get it to where they hit the ball on the ground to try to turn two or called outside pitches to get the kids running."

Reach Michael Odom at michodom@jacksonsun.com or 731-425-9754. Follow him on Twitter @JSWriterMichael.