The Soddy Daisy Trojans and the Signal Mountain Eagles have had some real battles on the baseball field in recent years, but Sunday’s game at Signal Mountain for the region championship wasn’t one of them.
These two teams split their regular-season games with Signal winning 5-0 at Soddy Daisy while the Trojans rebounded with a 10-5 win at Signal the following day. The Eagles got the advantage last Sunday when they hung on to win 9-8 for the District 6-AAA title and now they have a 3-1 advantage following the 17-0 whipping on Mother’s Day.
About the only thing missing on this beautiful afternoon was a woodshed.
The Trojans did a nice job of bouncing back from last Sunday’s tough loss as they beat Heritage by an 11-0 final on Saturday, but nothing seemed to work right as the Trojans simply had no answers for Signal Mountain’s attack.
Signal Mountain coach Josh Gandy has been on the receiving end of games like this last one, but he was just happy his team prevailed and will host the sectional games later this week.
“I thought we came here today with a purpose and were really focused from the start,” Gandy said after his team had improved to 27-8 overall.
“We made some really nice defensive plays and also got some timely hits, but I’m just hoping we can stay focused as we move forward. I thought Barrett Anderson did exactly what he needed to do, so we’ll enjoy this one and get ready for Wednesday,” he smiled.
Soddy Daisy coach Jim Higgins was quick to give praise where praise was due.
“They deserve it. There’s nothing I can say or do to take away from the way they played today as they are a great hitting team with lots of veteran players,” Higgins said after his team fell to 30-8.
“We just didn’t play a good game and our pitching wasn’t good. Now we just have to move onto the next one as it’s time to put up or shut up. I don’t think anyone was expecting a game like this, but there are just days like that. But we just got our tails kicked and now we have to really fight for a spot in the sectionals,” he added, knowing that his team had to face the Heritage-Loudon in the third game on Sunday to keep their season alive.
The Trojans had at least one base runner in all five innings, but Anderson did a good job of limiting the damage they did in those spots.
A.J. Florio singled with one out in the first, but was stranded. Brayden Maynor reached on an Eagle error before Troy James singled to put two runners on, but Anderson got Logan Williams on a fly to right to end that inning.
Jake Jackson had a leadoff single in the third and Keith Scoggins moved him to third with a one-out double, but both were left standing when Cooper Poe popped to second for the second out before Gabe Ferguson grounded to third.
In the fourth, Maynor singled with one out, but again was left standing on first as Anderson retired the next two hitters. And then in the fifth, Florio reached on a Signal Mountain error, but was standing on third when Scoggins and Poe grounded out to end the game.
Meanwhile, the Signal Mountain bats went to work early and often.
Sending 13 hitters to the plate in the first, the Eagles scored seven runs. They sent 11 to bat in the second when they doubled the score. And then in the third, they concluded their scoring with three runs on just one hit as they took advantage of three walks.
Signal Mountain only had nine hits, including two each from Ben Timblin, Cash Keene and Anderson. Timblin had a two-run single the first while Keene drove in two with a first-inning single and another with a double in the second. He collected his fourth RBI of the game when he reached in the third on a fielder’s choice.
While Keene had four runs batted in, Bo Cooper, Max Rackel and Timblin all had two each.
Anderson wasn’t totally spectacular, but finished the game with no runs scored on five hits and no walks.
Soddy Daisy’s Sai Vickers took the loss after allowing six runs on just three hits while getting just one out in the first. He also had three walks.
SODDY DAISY 000 00 – 0 5 2
SIGNAL MOUNTAIN 773 0x – 17 9 2
Vickers, Hickey (1), Hughes (2), McCoin (3) and James, Romano (3); Anderson and Wilburn.
(Email John Hunt at nomarathonmoose@gmail.com)