Jim Mashek

COLONELS STRIKE FOR FIVE RUNS IN THE FIFTH; SPARTANS FINISH THE SEASON AT 27-10

LEXINGTON — Twenty minutes after it was over, South Warren High School’s baseball team was still milling about late Saturday night in right-center field of the Counter Clocks Field.

The clock had pretty much struck midnight for the boys from Nashville Road.

Time had run out on the Spartans, of course, in the KHSAA state tournament, their fifth appearance in the event since the school opened in 2010.

South Warren was poised to get to Final Four Weekend — back at the University of Kentucky’s home ballpark, being used for an NCAA regional — and the Spartans opened a 4-0 lead on sixth-ranked Whitley County when sophomore third baseman Ethan Reynolds launched a two-run home run over the fence in left-center field.

“These nine seniors, they’ve brought us back,” veteran South Warren coach Chris Gage said after Whitley County eliminated the Spartans 7-4 on Saturday night. “I’m really proud of these guys, really proud of this team. Maybe the most proud I’ve ever been of a team.

“We’ve won the most (regional tournaments), Elite Eights, stuff like that … but we had a little lull with COVID (the lost 2020 season, and the pandemic’s fallout in 2021). We had a little break, in the culture, and these seniors — it’s all the players, trust me — they just put us back where we hopefully belong. Where we think we belong …

“I really like how these nine seniors restored the program.”

It’s been an interesting journey, to be sure.

The Spartans had no trouble winning games in 2021, the year after COVID-19 wiped out KHSAA spring sports across the Commonwealth. They closed regular-season play with eight consecutive victories, all in non-district play, against the likes of Glasgow High School, Franklin-Simpson and Logan County. Solid programs, all the way around.

But the nature of high school baseball in Kentucky — a single-elimination format for nearly the entire postseason — brought the season to a screeching halt at Greenwood High School.

South Warren dropped a 9-5 decision to longtime rival Warren East High School, in semifinal play of the KHSAA 14th District Tournament, and they closed the door on a pretty impressive 25-10 season.

Still, no hardware to be had. And that’s what these guys are playing for.

Championships.

Then, in 2022, the Spartans struggled with consistency.

With Warren Central closing the door on its season, shortly after Spring Break, the Spartans limped into the stretch run of the season after going 1-6 in district play.

South Warren was the host for the KHSAA 14th District Tournament, and it was nothing short of a nightmare for Chris Gage’s Spartans.

Bowling Green High School, and Kentucky’s “Mr. Baseball,” shortstop/pitcher Patrick Forbes — now a starting outfielder at the University of Louisville — strolled into South Warren Ballpark and put a beating on the Spartans.

A beating to the tune of 16-2.

“It was about as low as I could go, in my career,” South Warren pitcher/shortstop Dalton Sisson said after Saturday night’s game.

The Spartans finished the 2022 season with an 18-15 record. Not much to hang your hat on …

Fast forward to late Saturday night, at Counter Clocks Field.

Sophomore infielder/pitcher Ethan Reynolds, whose star is clearly on the rise, tried to put the season in perspective.

Reynolds’ summation:

“The season we had last year … getting beat in the first round of district … to finish in the final eight, in the whole state … (South’s seniors) are the biggest leaders I’ve had. They’ve mentored me. They’ve kept me in check. They’ve kept everybody in check.

“They are my guys. They’re dawgs.”

As South’s Eli Capps, the wily 6-foot-4, 200-pound senior catcher put it, these guys were determined to change the narrative.

And they did.

“Nine seniors … We fight to the last out,” Capps said after Friday afternoon’s amazing comeback in a 4-3 victory over Breathitt County High School. “That’s our mindset … We had a really good season. Toward the end of the season, we bonded really well. Trusted each other.

“Nine or 10 seniors, on this team, that’s big.”

South coach Chris Gage was equally effusive about this senior class, and what they’ve meant to his program. The colorful Gage has been South Warren’s baseball coach since the school’s inception. The Spartans’ banner seasons are on display on the right-field fence at South Warren Ballpark.

They’ll have to revise that familiar wall before South Warren gets back on the field in nine months.

Gage has plenty of young talent on board and you’ll be seeing plenty of them in the near future.

This group includes:

****– Sophomore/junior-to-be Ethan Reynolds, a top-flight college prospect who also shines in football;

****– Griffin Rardin, a sophomore shortstop/pitcher, the son of WKU head coach Marc Rardin who wielded a solid bat and earned three saves out of the bullpen;

****– Sophomore infielder Ty Croghan, who hit near the top of the lineup while batting well over .300 all season;

****– Sophomore pitcher/outfielder Austin Allen, who pitched a complete game in a do-or-die game against Warren Central in the KHSAA 14th District Tournament, earning his third win of the season;

****– And Camden Page, an eighth-grader, pressed into duty, because of injuries to veteran players such as Jacob Gilbreath.

That’s going to be a lot for the rest of the KHSAA’s 4th Region to deal with, to be sure.

The Spartans couldn’t hold their 4-0 lead on Whitley County on Saturday night, but the Colonels know a thing or two about winning, when they aren’t chanting from the dugout, including the tired Atlanta Braves’ mantra, the “tomahawk chop” that began at Florida State University and has spread to other schools or pro teams with Native American mascots.

The Braves, the Kansas City Chiefs, your neighbor’s cocky slow-pitch softball team that likes beating the tar out of folks and then bragging about it when they’re done.

Weak.

Whitley County earned its 37th victory on Saturday night, against four defeats. Like the Spartans, they know a thing or two about mounting comebacks.

And they mounted a pretty impressive one under the lights at Counter Clocks Field.

“It’s just a special win for our program, our school and our community,” Whitley County coach Jeremy Shope told Les Dixon of the Times-Tribune, a daily newspaper in Corbin, Kentucky,

After Ethan Reynolds’ home run sailed over the left-field fence, the Colonels went back to their dugout and started grinding.

Andrew Stack, the eight-hole batter in the Whitley lineup, drew a leadoff walk from South’s starting pitcher, Dalton Sisson, before Sisson struck out Colonels center fielder Shane Parker for the first out of the inning.

Then Grant Zehr, the Colonels’ winning pitcher, did some damage with the bat, too.

Zehr hammered a double to deep left-center field, cutting the Spartans’ lead to 4-2, before South shortstop Griffin Rardin cut off the throw from the outfield and retired Zehr trying to stretch the hit into a triple.

That might have been the last encouraging sign of the night for the Spartans.

Whitley County simply rolled with the momentum.

“We consider (ourselves) as a bunch of blue-collared guys,” Shope told the Corbin newspaper. “No matter the situation, you get down or you’re up … you just battle, battle, and battle. Our guys brought it tonight, and they competed.”

Leadoff man Bryce Anderson then laced a double to right-center field, but Stack couldn’t score from second base, because Brady Patterson, South’s sophomore right fielder, had a play on the ball before it fell for a hit.

South could never get back on track, particularly defensively.

The Colonels sent 10 batters to the plate, in the bottom of the fifth inning, and scored five runs, chasing Sisson and bringing senior right-hander Jackson Joiner out of the South Warren bullpen.

“I can’t yell at the kids for a blooper falling in,” South Warren coach Chris Gage said. “I can’t fault (Dalton) Sisson for making a nice pitch … (Whitley’s) kid did a good job of getting the bat on the ball, but it just blooped in.”

Gage referred to Whitley shortstop Matthew Wright’s two-run triple along the right-field line in the fifth, putting the Colonels in front, 6-4, for their first lead of the game.

The Spartans had the game’s only error in that inning. Griffin Rardin tried to turn a double play on a grounder that turned out to be an infield hit.

Senior second baseman Andrew Milam committed that one error, but he came back in the bottom of the seventh to lash a leadoff single to center field. The Colonels’ Matthew Zehr then induced a double-play ball from South’s Camden Page, and they turned it before Dalton Sisson grounded out to end the game.

Whitley County (37-4) will advance to face Henderson County (20-17), a Cinderella squad if there ever was one, in Friday’s second semifinal at Kentucky Pride Park, on the UK campus. Owensboro’s Apollo High School (25-12) will face Shelby County (31-9) in the first semifinal.

South Warren’s Dalton Sisson wasn’t hit that hard, for the bulk of his outing against Whitley County, but when the wheels came off the Spartans’ wagon, they pretty much went all over the place.

“We had so many hard-hit outs,” Gage said. “A debatable call at first base, an unfortunate play at second base, three bloopers …

“That’s the baseball gods, right there.”

Perhaps that’s why the Spartans’ players and coaches, and their families and friends, were in no particular hurry to leave the ballpark. They’d shown plenty of grit in winning 27 games. They might have loomed as a possible favorite next weekend, when the tournament comes to a conclusion at the Uinjversity of Kentucky.

South’s Dalton Sisson can take you from Point A to Point B pretty quickly. Whitley’s Grant Zehr was the winning pitcher, improving to 9-2 on the season. Sisson took the loss, finishing his final season at South with a 5-2 record on the mound.

“We went from the eighth-ranked team in the 4th Region to the last eight teams in the state,” Sisson said.

That’s why Chris Gage tried to stay upbeat, when it was over. The Spartans appear to have an impressive nucleus, with which to build, in the future, but their nine seniors have left quite an impact.

Those seniors include pitcher/infielder Dalton Sisson, catcher Eli Capps, outfielder Tucker Bishop, infielder Andrew Milam, outfielder Keegan Milby, catcher/outfielder Dylan Bush, outfielder Chris Cardwell, outfielder Jacob Gilbreth, and pitchers Jackson Joiner and Bradley Lewis.

“I don’t think anyone can argue with the toughness of this team,” Gage said. “We had a dozen or so come-from-behind wins this year. These kids didn’t give up … The Milbys, the Sissons, Eli Capps. It’s a great group.”

A group that leaves quite a legacy for the Spartans’ immediate future.