By JASON KING
Leader sportswriter
The next to the last inning of Jacksonville’s season was somewhat of a microcosm of the Red Devils’ entire year. After missing the postseason the past four years, only one out stood between the Devils and the 6A state quarterfinals.
But a fielding error allowed Watson Chapel to stay alive in the bottom of the 12th inning.
Jacksonville led 5-2 at that point with two outs, but the Wildcats tied the game to send it into the 13th inning, where WC shut down the Red Devils in the top half before scoring on a pair of singles in the bottom side to secure the marathon win.
Jacksonville’s strange-but-successful season ended at 16-14.
“We didn’t play as well as we could have all year,” Jacksonville head coach Larry Burrows said, “but we competed hard all year long. We hung in and battled, and we got rewarded for playing tough. I told them that we may not have played well enough to get a ring, but that we can still be satisfied with the effort we gave, and the things we accomplished.”
Burrows said he felt his potent young squad was on the brink of greatness all season. That great thing came with a 4-3 win over Sheridan in the first round on Friday, and he said Saturday’s near upset of the top-seeded Wildcats will generate even more excitement for 2009 and beyond.
Pitcher Michael Harmon was working on a no-hitter until the bottom of the sixth inning on Saturday, when the Wildcats plated a pair of runs. The Red Devils answered with four hits in the top of the seventh inning, including a RBI-double by Patrick Castleberry that scored Cameron Hood and a single by Seth Tomboli to bring in Castleberry for the tie.
That score stayed the same for the next five innings.
Hood and Castleberry singled and Tomboli reached on an error, bringing in Hood to give the Red Devils the lead. Wisdom walked to force in another run, and a bad throw on a squeeze play gave the Red Devils a 5-2 lead.
“We can build on this,” Burrows said of the bad season turned good. “We told the seniors that it’s our plan to build on what they have started.”
Plenty of talent remains on the Jacksonville roster, but the loss of first baseman/pitcher Jason Regnas, along with outfielders Cameron Hood and Tyler Wisdom leaves a big gap in the middle of the Devils’ batting line-up. It also means Jacksonville will be losing three of its best defensive players.
“We’re losing our two-hole hitter, and our three-hole,” Burrows said. “And Regnas is the best first baseman I’ve ever coached. Wisdom and Hood have both been good in the outfield for us over the past years, and they both batted over .400, so they are going to be tough to replace.”
