“We just felt like we could take this team to the ropes, and I felt like we did.”
– JCHS head baseball coach Mike Paulk
PEACHTREE CITY - McIntosh High School has a banner on the outfield wall commemorating it being last year’s state runner-up.
The Chiefs also entered the GHSA Class AAAAA state tournament ranked sixth in their classification. None of that prestige seemed to matter in the eyes of the Greyhounds, who gave McIntosh more than it could handle in last week’s first-round series. After dropping the first game 5-0 after trailing 1-0 through three innings, the Greyhounds season ended in an 8-5 extra-inning loss in the second game after they rallied from four runs down to force extra frames before three ninth-inning runs by the Chiefs secured a hard-fought sweep. Even though the Greyhounds clawed back from being down by four runs in the seventh inning, there was no pep talk that would make for a viral video clip on the internet.
“I just said, ‘we’re going to have to take every at-bat one at a time.’
We’ve been in situations like this before. There was no need for us to be nervous or upset because we had been there before and prevailed,” Greyhounds head coach Mike Paulk said. “I could not be more proud of how we fought. To take a team like McIntosh to nine innings, I could not be more proud of them.”
The loss ended the Greyhounds season with a record of 16-14 while McIntosh advanced to the second round against Coffee.
Game one starting pitcher Kaylob Harris gave up 10 hits in the first game, but him being able to prevent a good portion of those baserunners from scoring runs kept things close for Jones County, which was held of a pair of hits with those coming by Brayden Lampkin and Colin Evans.
A pair of single runs in the second and third innings of the second game put JCHS down 2-0, but it didn’t roll over. Though the Greyhounds came up short early on, they would eventually cash in, putting two runners aboard in the third and fourth innings. The digging in paid off an inning later when Marlin Mills laid down a bunt that got the Greyhounds on the board, down 2-1 through five innings.
“We prepared as coaches as much as we could, and we prepared our players as much as we could,” Paulk said. “We just felt like we could take this team to the ropes, and I felt like we did.”
On the surface, the top of the sixth had the look of the Greyhounds’ hopes of a win coming unraveled. Two errors and a double extended the McIntosh lead to 5-1, chasing starting pitcher Dalton Lowe from the game after five and two-thirds of an inning and giving up five hits and two earned runs.
Instead, it was just a precursor to a furious rally from Jones County. With their season three outs from being over going into the seventh inning, the Greyhounds got to work quickly. Brayden Lampkin reached base, going on to score on an RBI single by Davis Upshaw. And after Marlin Mills reached home on an error at third, JCHS was within two, down 5-3. Noah Robinson equalized things, parking a Chiefs pitch over the leftfield wall on a two-run homer, tying it at 5-5.
Things would stalemate from there. After each side failed to score in the eighth inning, three runs by the Chiefs proved to be the difference, giving the Greyhounds a slim firstround loss for the second year in a row. MJ Lane’s three hits led the Hounds in the second game with two each from Robinson, Lampkin and Evans.
Last week’s loss marks the second year in a row in which the Greyhounds have gone on the road and hung right with a heavy favorite. JCHS dropped a pair of one-run games a season ago at Greenbrier in the state tournament.
“It says a lot about them. The experience that they’ve had, we made some tough decisions last year to start some younger guys. We had some growing pains,” Paulk said. “To hold Greenbrier the way we did, I felt like we could make some noise this year, and the guys have executed. It shows in the back half of our season and (Tuesday).”
Jones County loses three seniors in Evans, Mills and Cohen Barfield, a program that heads into the offseason toward transition with last week being the final one for Paulk as head coach after the recent announcement that there would be a change for leadership for the baseball program.
“(It’s like I told them) all season, ‘I chose you. I chose you for a reason.’ I believe in them. I’m going to go down swinging with them. They are special to me. I have seen them play since they were younger, and I have seen them play now and to be part of their lives,” Paulk said. “That means a lot to me, and I am thankful for the opportunity. I don’t want to see it end, but I am proud of the men that they are becoming.”
