There’s a degree of inevitability to any postseason. At some point, in one way or another, like a train moving on the rails, the journey will come to a halt.
For the Greyhounds, multiple miscues at one of the most inopportune times doomed them last
Wednesday in the first round of the GHSA Class AAAAA state tournament against Harris County.
A combined six errors made the Tigers job easier as they won 12-2 and 15-3 to sweep the first-round series and advance to the second round against Loganville.
Thanks to their missteps, the Greyhounds spotted Harris County 3-0 and 4-0 leads in each game, making the task even tougher to bounce back from.
“We picked a completely bad time to have a bad day. We just couldn’t make plays; we had a lot of mental mistakes out there,” Greyhounds head coach Jason Page said. “There are not too many games you’ll win the playoffs with that many errors, you can’t do that.”
Jones County ends its season with an 18-10 record and will graduate a strong senior class that was responsible for seven of nine starters on the field. It’s a group that left a noticeable mark on the JCHS program, maintaining a strong standard.
“We’ll definitely miss them,” Page said. “They’ve done a great job of showing how to have a great attitude at practice every day and how to work and get better every time,”
Playing some two hours or so from home, the Greyhounds got a rocky start to the first game, trailing the Tigers 3-0 through an inning, with one run being via an error.
“It seemed like everything we did in the infield was wrong, and you can’t have that,” Page said. “There’s momentum shifts and swings, and the only way to get rid of that is hitting, and we didn’t do that.”
Despite rallying to trail 3-1 going to the bottom of the third after Chase Milton doubled in Aiden Payne, chances of a game one win unraveled in the bottom half of the frame with the Tigers taking full advantage of four walks to the first five batters, scoring five times to lead 8-1 and end starting pitcher Landon Califf’s day after giving up three hits and being responsible for eight runs.
Bo Mansfield relieved him, giving up two inherited runs plus two runs in the fifth and sixth innings to end the game in six innings. The Greyhounds got their second run in the fourth as Tucker Maddox reached on an error and scored on a passed ball.
Their backs to the wall, the Greyhounds needed a good start to the second game and to get things off on the right foot. The opposite took place for Jones County, as a 2-0 Tigers lead grew to 4-0 thanks to a two-out error. Unable to mount a hit at the plate, affairs went from bad to worse for the Greyhounds in the top of the third. After a fly ball toward right field resulted in a pair of runs for the Tigers, an error from a bunt in front of the plate and pitcher’s mound gave Harris County two more runs. That, followed by a passed ball, put JCHS behind 9-0.
“You’ve got to have a shutdown inning and come in and score runs, and we didn’t do that,” Page said.
Another run down, Jones County was in danger of being mercyruled twice. But in a strong show of pride, the Greyhounds went down fighting. And it came withouts. After Keagan Baxter walked and Dawson Harris singled, Tucker Maddox tripled both of them in and went on to score on a passed ball, cutting the Harris County lead to 10-3. It was nearly reduced even more, but catcher Austin May, showing hustle to the end, was thrown out trying to stretch a double to a triple.
“We wanted to make sure we could play seven innings, I was glad we were able to do that,” Page said. “We kind of made it interesting for a bit.”
The Tigers scored five times in the seventh for the final margin, ending Jones County’s season. Harris, Maddox and May had hits for JCHS in the nightcap.
