A DISAPPOINTING end, yes, but not a disappointing season, Jefferson baseball coach Tommy Knight said.
Coosa (17-6) rallied from a 6-0 second-inning deficit Friday to beat Jefferson 8-6 in the second game of a best-of-three series and eliminate the Dragons from the Class AA playoffs. The Eagles won the opener 9-6 earlier in the day.
“We progressively got better,” Knight said of the year. “We did not play this way the first part of the year or even halfway through the year. I’m proud of the improvements we made and some of the things we saw out of the guys who are coming back. We’re better than we were when we started, and that’s the name of the game.”
The visiting Dragons appeared like they would force a game three after jumping out to a large lead in game two, but Coosa — a Rome-area school that finished as Region 7-AA runners-up — had other plans.
The Eagles scored eight unanswered runs to overtake Jefferson, and the resurgence of Coosa ace Kyle Peals was even more impressive.
After serving up a two-run double in the second inning to Andrew Bartek that put Jefferson (14-13) up 6-0, Peals retired 18 consecutive batters to close the game.
Peals allowed five hits, six runs (five earned) and two walks while striking out nine in earning the complete-game win.
“You could almost see it click for him,” Knight said. “He wasn’t throwing the ball all that well and all of a sudden he turned one loose and it was almost like a light came on and he started throwing the ball really well. He settled down. He’s a good pitcher.”
Jefferson roughed up Peals with six runs in the first two innings off five hits, getting RBIs from Austin Thompson, Max Ford, Micah Carpenter and two from Bartek with the second-inning double. Jefferson scored its other run off an error.
But Peals was dominant after that, and the Coosa bats eventually got to Jefferson starter Micah Carpenter.
A run-scoring single from Dylan Simmons and a two-run double from Nick Turner in the third inning trimmed the Dragons’ lead to 6-3.
Blaine Swift then greeted Carpenter with a leadoff homerun in the fifth inning to cut the lead to 6-4 and Sam Tuck followed with a two-out single to pull the Eagles within a run. Coosa tied the contest at six with a run off a passed ball.
With Peals holding the Jefferson bats in check, Coosa continued to attack offensively. Seth Broome singled in the go-ahead run for Coosa in the seventh off Jefferson’s Matt Bowen and Coosa got an insurance score off a sacrifice fly RBI from Evan Osborne.
The Dragons weren’t able to answer.
Peals struck out Ford and Bowen in the seventh and forced Bartek to ground out to end the game.
Just a few hours earlier, Jefferson found itself in the comeback role during game one.
Trailing 7-0 after three innings in their first state playoff game in two years, the Dragons finally got clicking.
Jefferson got an RBI double from Tyler Cole and RBI single from Andy Nicolas in the fourth and two more runs in the fifth with a two-run double from Thompson to cut the lead to 7-4.
Coosa got a run back in the fifth, scoring off an error, but Jefferson continued to put pressure on the Eagles.
Ford knocked home the Dragons’ fifth run in the sixth, followed by Carpenter who added an RBI single to cut the lead to 8-6.
“There’s a lot of character over there on our team,” Knight said. “Our kids could have quit after 7-0 in the third inning in the first ball game. It was hot. We’re a long ways from home. It’s a young group. But they didn’t. They kept fighting, kept scrapping and kept themselves in the ball game.”
But Turner hit a solo home run in the sixth and Swift — pitching in relief — worked a perfect seventh inning to close out game one.
Knight noted the momentum swings during the five hours of baseball on Friday.
“It was almost like four different games,” he said.
Ford went a combined 3-for-7 on the day with two RBIs and two runs scored, while Bartek was 3-for-7 with two RBIs. Thompson went 2-for-7 with three RBIs.
Now, Jefferson turns its attention to next year and a new-look Region 8-AA that won’t include teams like North Oconee, Elbert County or Hart County.
“We’ve got a whole different group of folks we’re going to playing,” Knight said. “Obviously, we want to take it a step further. We made the playoffs this year. We’d like to play a little while in the playoffs next year and get back to where we were from 2007 to 2010 — going deep in the playoffs every year.”
