Macon Middle School baseball are conference champions.
For the past few years, wins have been hard to come by for the program, with players forced to watch their rivals win the Blue Ridge Athletic Conference. After going undefeated in both football and basketball however, a talented core of eighth-graders was the perfect group to break the streak, posting their third unbeaten season in as many sports this school year.
“They were the mainstay of the team, because we had a very large eighth-grade group that have played together for a while, and they’re very good,” said first-year head coach Randy Phillips, who has spent the past six years as an assistant for FHS varsity. “[Varsity head coach Jared Greenwood] and I both knew there were a lot of good players on this team. I think the last couple years they’ve had some good coaching, which has helped them get to where they are this year.”
While this year’s group of eighth-graders had plenty of success in other sports, Phillips set about teaching them and their teammates how to win on the diamond. In pre-season scrimmages with two WNC middle school powers, the veteran coach knew his team had what it took to match up with the area’s elite.
“We scrimmaged over at Bob Lewis [Ballpark] before the season started, and we played [middle schools feeding into] T.C. Roberson and A.C. Reynolds,” said Phillips. “I knew that they were both gonna be good, and we pretty much handled them. … [I knew] that weekend, if we could just hold our own we’d be pretty good, and they did very well against those teams and beat them pretty handily. I knew they were gonna be good from then; it was really just a matter of keeping them motivated.”
With convincing wins over two talented teams from Buncombe County, the Panthers entered the regular season with a full head of steam. One by one, they toppled every opponent on the schedule.
“I think we outscored our opponents 252-54 on the year, so we played good defense, we pitched well, and I don’t think we scored under 10 runs in a game,” said Phillips. “They put everything together and kept it rolling the whole year. … In the past, their defense has been iffy, and once they made a couple errors it would kind of steamroll into a loss. In baseball you’re gonna make errors, and I pounded into them that, ‘You’re gonna make errors, but it’s how you come out the next play that’s gonna determine if you’re gonna win the game.’ We made errors, but we didn’t make a bunch of errors in a row that cost us any games or big innings, so I was proud of them for that.”
With excellent hitting, pitching and fielding, the Panthers ran roughshod over their regular-season foes, entering the BRAC Tournament with a perfect 14-0 record. In the Conference Semifinal however, the team faced their toughest test of the year.
“Brevard played us really close,” said Phillips. “It was the game before the championship game, and it was a team we hadn’t played yet. We went up on them 6-1 and we were like, ‘Ok, here we go,’ and then they put up a six-run inning that tied it 7-7. That was late in the game and we had to battle, and we ended up scoring two or three runs the next two innings and beat them 11-7. But that was a tie game going into the fourth or fifth inning, which was probably our closest game on the year.”
After their hard-fought win over Brevard, on May 11 the Panthers returned to MMS for their final contest of the season, a BRAC title game versus the Rugby Raiders. There, Rugby opened the scoring in the top of the second, turning a single and two Panther errors into the game’s first two runs. With a man on third, the Raiders bunted to bring the runner home, but third baseman Anderson Terrell chased down the ball and made an excellent running throw to put the batter out at first.
Left fielder Paxton Sutton responded in the bottom of the inning, singling and moving to second on a Raider throwing error. After advancing to third on a wild pitch, Sutton scored on a groundball out by first baseman Lance Parker to cut Rugby’s lead to 3-1.
The Panther offense stayed hot in the third, getting a one-out single from shortstop Will Rauers and walks from Terrell and center fielder Damion Bowles. With the bases loaded, they cut Rugby’s lead to 3-2 on a sacrifice fly by catcher Hudson Stringer.
Macon lost their momentum in the top of the fourth however, hitting Rugby’s leadoff hitter with a pitch and issuing the second a base on balls. Sensing the danger, Phillips brought Rauers in to pitch, who struck out the next batter on an 0-3 count. After stealing third, Rugby’s lead runner scored on a sacrifice bunt, but Rauers struck out the final batter looking on a nasty 3-2 breaking ball.
Down 4-2, the Panther offense kicked into gear in the bottom of the inning, getting a walk from designated hitter Eli Phillips, a single from second baseman Gunner McConnell and a Rugby error to move McConnell and Isaiah Dees, pinch-running for Phillips, into scoring position. A wild pitch then brought home Dees, before Terrell drew a walk of his own. With two men on, Rauers then made the play of the game for Macon, tattooing a first-pitch curveball over the left field wall for a three-run homer to put his team up 6-4. Rauers followed up his shot at the plate with a 1-2-3, two-strikeout top of the fifth on the mound.
Macon carried their momentum into the bottom of the inning, punishing a taxed Rugby pitching staff with seven more runs on four singles, a double, two walks and several Raider miscues.
Still up 13-4 after another quick inning from Rauers, Macon had a chance to send the fans home early in the sixth, by way of the 10-run mercy rule. After a single and a steal by McConnell, Bowles did just that, belting a double down the third-base line to give the Panthers a 14-4 victory.
“When we gave up a few runs, we had one or two errors in that [second] inning, so I went out and talked to them and pulled the infield in,” said Phillips. “I just let them know that we had to turn it around, and I told them, ‘We haven’t scored under 10 runs all year; I don’t see why we’re not going to this time.’ We just needed to step it up and make some plays for our pitcher, and they did. All credit to those guys … They’re a good group of kids; they really are.”