PCA’s bid for title comes up short

Published 12:00 am Wednesday, May 23, 2001

Porters Chapel players, from left, Ryan Hoben, Gerald Mims, and Chris Simms try to stay upbeat while watching the Eagles fall in the first game Friday night. Below left, Heidelberg’s Matt Andrews beats out an infield hit while Andrew Embry waits the low throw. Below right, Embry and catcher Walter Bliss have a conference in the first game. The Eagles’ state championship hopes were dashed in back-to-back losses to the Rebels in Heidelberg. (The Vicksburg Post/MELANIE DUNCAN)

[05/21/01] HEIDELBERG At the worst possible time, and all at once, everything fell apart for Porters Chapel Academy.

The bats went into a deep freeze. The ace pitcher was suddenly very human. Teammates argued with each other. Normally reliable fielders booted routine grounders and pop ups. Runners were left on base by the truckload.

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And the worst part of it all was that the Eagles allowed Heidelberg to snatch a state championship right out from under their noses.

Heidelberg swept two games from PCA to win the Academy-A championship on Friday, rallying back from a 1-0 deficit in the best-of-three series for a pair of convincing wins, 14-4 and 13-2. Both games were ended by the 10-run mercy rule.

“This is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, is accept this game,” said PCA pitcher Heath Smith, who was torched for 11 hits and nine earned runs in Game 3, the second game of the doubleheader. “I’ll never forget it. Every single day, for the rest of my life, I’ll think about this game.”

After the game, some PCA players appeared on the brink of tears, while others looked disgusted and frustrated at the lost opportunity to win the school’s first state title.

The Eagles were looking to become the second Warren County team to win a state title this year. Warren Central swept Hattiesburg one week ago for the Mississippi High School Athletic Association Class 5A crown.

PCA (22-13) had plenty of chances to run with the hard-hitting Rebels, but squandered most of them. The Eagles had runners on in every inning of both games Friday, but stranded 19 in the two games. The Eagles also missed two chances to make a statement early when they left the bases loaded in the first inning of the first game, then had runners on second and third with no outs in the first inning of the nightcap, but stranded both.

In another scene that seemed to sum up the Eagles’ day, Smith smashed a ball nearly 400 feet but 20 feet foul with two runners on and PCA trailing 6-1 in the top of the fourth of the second game.

“It just wasn’t meant to be today, it seems like,” said PCA’s Trey White, who went 2-for-4 with a double in Game 2 and walked twice and had an RBI single in Game 3. “We had opportunities after opportunities, we just let them slip through our hands.”

PCA coach Randy Wright gave some of the credit to Heidelberg, which had 41 hits and scored 34 runs in the three-game series. PCA had only 10 hits in Friday’s doubleheader.

“Bottom line, they hit the ball today with runners on and we didn’t. We left over 20 guys on base in two games today, and you’re not going to win games like that,” Wright said. “I fully expected to come down here and win today, and it’s extremely disappointing to get beat.”

The Rebels, meanwhile, had no such problems. Heidelberg (21-5), which won its first state title, hammered three PCA pitchers for 17 hits in the first game Friday, then rocked Smith for five home runs in the deciding game. Before Friday, Smith had given up just three homers all season, all in the playoffs.

Heidelberg right fielder Blake Bass hit the first homer of Game 3, a solo shot, in the bottom of the first inning to give the Rebels a 1-0 lead. Five batters later, designated hitter Ryan Aultman sent the Rebels on their way to the title with a grand slam that made it 5-0, and the Eagles never recovered.

“I knew we had it after that,” Aultman said. “I knew (Smith) was supposed to be some kind of great pitcher. I got some information on his background and that got me pumped up.”

PCA center fielder Kyle Ehrhardt delivered an RBI single in the top of the second to cut it to 5-1, but Heidelberg answered with one run in the third and a two-run homer by Heath Ainsworth in the fourth to make it 9-1. The fourth-inning rally was also helped by three PCA errors and a balk that allowed a run to score.

“They jumped on us quick. We didn’t let it get us down by any means,” White said.

PCA scored another run in the fifth, on a bases-loaded groundout by designated hitter Josh Rush, but couldn’t get any more and left the bases loaded. Heidelberg second baseman Brent Welch got that run back with a solo homer in the bottom of the inning, and the Rebels finished the job with Matt Culberson’s game-ending three-run bomb to left in the bottom of the sixth.

“They can just hit,” Smith said. “That’s the best-hitting team I’ve ever pitched to in my entire life. That team, right there, hitting-wise, was better than the Warren Central team I pitched against last summer … There’s no doubt about it, that’s the best team we’ve played all season long.”

Friday’s first game, Game 2 of the series, didn’t go much better for the Eagles. After PCA left the bases loaded in the top of the first, Heidelberg responded with a three-run rally in the bottom of the inning against starter Trey White (3-6) and never trailed.

The Rebels immediately answered every PCA run with at least one of their own, and put the game away with 10 runs in the last two innings. After T.J. Smith’s three-run homer in the top of the fifth cut it to 7-4 and gave the Eagles some hope, Heidelberg came back with seven runs on eight hits in the bottom of the inning against freshman Ryan Hoben, including three doubles, a two-run single by center fielder Derek McKee, who went 2-for-4 with four RBIs, and a two-run homer by Aultman.

Bass’ two-run double made it 14-4 and ended the game.

“I thought if we could come back home we could be pretty focused. We played pretty good ballgames today,” Heidelberg coach Tony Ainsworth said.

Wright said the first game didn’t affect the Eagles’ play in the series finale.

“Even though we lost the first one, I felt like we were real confident putting Heath on the mound and going into the second ballgame,” Wright said. “It’s tough to win when you leave as many runners on base as we did, especially against a great hitting team like they are.

“They killed the ball today, and we just didn’t hit in the key situations. If we would have, I felt like we could have scored with them, we just didn’t get it done.”