Jacksonville claims area title by winning nightcap of a wild doubleheader with Cherokee County; Donoho completes second straight undefeated area season
By Al Muskewitz
JACKSONVILLE — It was described at various times in a raucous post-game celebration as bedlam, out of this world, just like a movie and just plain two teams getting after it. Whatever you want to call it, it won’t be a series either of these teams will soon forget.
Jacksonville and Cherokee County staged a wild doubleheader Wednesday to determine the Class 4A Area 9 baseball champion.
In the end, Jacksonville rallied last and won Game 3 16-13 to claim the area crown and will host a first-round playoff series next week for the first time since 2015. Cherokee County forced the winner-take-all rubber game by winning the first game of the doubleheader 13-7.
If you want offense, Henry Farm Park was the place to be. The Warriors had 26 runs and 22 hits in the two games. Jacksonville had 23 runs and 28 hits.
In the decisive nightcap, the Warriors rallied from deficits of 5-0, 6-5 and 10-9 to either tie or take leads. And Jacksonville rallied from being tied 5-5 and deficits of 9-6 and 12-10.
In the end, Cherokee County just couldn’t overcome the six-spot Jacksonville put up in the bottom of the fifth to take the lead for good.
“What’s that word they use for Oklahoma-Oklahoma State?” Jacksonville coach Jamison Edwards said. “Bedlam? This was bedlam out here.
“I had a real good feeling that they were going to give us all we could handle and I was hoping we were going to give them all they could handle as well so this could be as good of a series as what I thought it might turn out to be.
‘I’m gonna tell you what: I don’t know what they charged to get into their place and I’m not sure what we even charged to get into our place, but I’m going to say everybody in here got the most bang for their buck that they got in a while. You saw two real entertaining, maybe not always the prettiest, but good teams that just kept grinding and getting after it and wouldn’t quit.”
The nightcap was wild from the start when Kody Willingham opened the scoring with a two-run inside-the-park homer in the first. The Golden Eagles batted around that inning to score five, they sent eight to the plate in a four-run fourth to take a 10-0 lead and sent 11 to the plate in their decisive fifth.
Kody Willingham was 4-for-5 in the game with two RBIs and a triple away from the cycle. Nick Salmon was 3-for-5 with four runs. Starting pitcher Grant Patterson was 3-for-3 with two RBIs and Jacoby Zackery was 3-for-4 with four RBIs. JaeTaj Morris was 4-for-4 in the first game, had five straight hits in the doubleheader and reached base each of his first six times to the plate.
“This was out of this world,” catcher Tito Canales said. “It was just two ball clubs just going at it. You look at the scoreboard, there were runs every single inning. From the get go, it’s up and down.
“Jimmy (Ogle) gave us one of Coach (Jim) Ogle’s quotes: You don’t ride the roller-coaster. If it gets high, if it gets low, just go straight across. Just stay straight and just bear down and at some point you’re going to come out on top. And that’s what we did.”
The Golden Eagles may have taken control of the nightcap in the fifth, but that didn’t stop the Warriors from mounting one last charge.
They cut into the deficit with a run in the sixth and then put a runner in scoring position with one out in the seventh before reliever Will Greenwood ended the threat by getting a hot shot back to the box and turning it into a game-ending double play.
Cherokee County’s Connor Wilson had a two-run homer and two doubles in the nightcap and started on the mound after catching seven hard innings of the opener. Haden Wheeler went 3-for-3 with three runs in the nightcap and was 3-for-3 with four runs in the first game.
“This was two teams battling their tails off,” Warriors head coach Will Smith said. “Both sides faced every form of adversity that you could possibly face in every aspect of the game. I don’t know how many lead changes there were, but that was two teams battling it out.”
“We were fortunate enough to make a few more plays when we really needed to,” Edwards said.
Cherokee Co. 004 052 2 – 13 13 3
Jacksonville 002 050 0 – 7 11 8
WP: Daegan Scott (CC). LP: Nick Salmon. 2B: Nick Salmon (J). 3B: Kody Willingham (J).
Cherokee Co. 032 431 0 – 13 9 5
Jacksonville 501 460 x – 16 17 7
WP: Will Greenwood. LP: Tristan Whitefield. 2B: Jeb Crane (CC), Connor Wilson 2 (CC), Kody Willingham (J), Jacoby Zachery (J). HR: Connor Wilson (CC), Kody Willingham (J).
Completing another area season sweep
Slade Haney went 4-for-5 with two RBIs and Judson Billings was among five players with two hits and multiple RBIs as Donoho swamped Ragland 12-2 to go undefeated in area play for the second year in a row.
Billings doubled, homered and drove in two runs. Nic Thompson, and Peyton Webb both had two hits and two RBIs, Will Folsom had two hits and three RBIs and Kai Cleckler had two hits.
Billings hit a two-run homer in the third to put the Falcons up 3-0. Thompson, Webb and Folsom all had two-run singles in a six-run fourth that broken open the game.
Blake Sewell scattered four singles across six innings and struck out four to earn a complete-game victory. The win made the Falcons 8-0 in Class 1A Area 9 for the second year in a row.
Ragland 000 110 – 2 4 2
Donoho 103 602 – 12 14 3
WP: Blake Sewell. LP: Drake Key. 2B: Kai Cleckler 2 (D), Nic Thompson (D), Judson Billings (D). HR: Judson Billings (D).
Baseball moving to region play
The AHSAA Central Board approved Wednesday changing the format of baseball to eight-team region play from its current area alignment starting in the 2022-23 school year.
Currently, the top two teams in each area advance to the state playoffs. Four teams will move into the regionals under the change.
A similar format was adopted for softball, where the teams play an area tournament to determine regional qualifiers.
The change is expected to allow for the strongest teams to advance to postseason play. Opponents from the baseball side, however, cite a reduced flexibility in scheduling. [*** read more]
