Fairmont’s Kenley Callahan, right, tries to avoid the tag of St. Pauls’ Ethan Locklear, left, during an April 10 game in Fairmont. St. Pauls will play SouthWest Edgecombe in the second round of the state playoffs on Thursday, while Fairmont travels to Seaforth on Friday.
Chris Stiles | The Robesonian
PINETOPS — After upsetting No. 1 West Bladen in the first round of the 2A state playoffs on Tuesday, the St. Pauls baseball team will look to continue their postseason run with a second-round matchup at SouthWest Edgecombe.
“I’m told they’re a very scrappy team,” St. Pauls coach Bladen Strickland said. “They’re fast and they’ve got some big-time bats. I think it’s going to be a good ballgame.”
The game will be played at 7 p.m. on Thursday, moved up from its original date on Friday due to the potential for inclement weather.
St. Pauls (10-13), the No. 32 seed in the 2A East Region, beat West Bladen 5-4 to open the state playoffs. Now the Bulldogs will look to match the 2022 St. Pauls team, which advanced to the third round.
“The boys are focused,” Strickland said. “Yesterday in practice, we had a really good practice; you can tell they know they can compete with anybody now in the state. That was a big-time win for us, but today’s a new day, you’ve got to 1-0 in the playoffs every day or you’re going to the house.”
No. 16 SouthWest Edgecombe (15-7) defeated No. 17 Holmes 7-6 in nine innings in Tuesday’s first-round game; it was the Cougars’ third consecutive extra-inning game and fourth straight one-run game.
Parker Gay (6-3, 2.46 ERA) will be unavailable on the mound for SouthWest Edgecombe, but Chase Taylor (3-1, 1.20 ERA), Connor Wolfe (2-1, 1.68 ERA) and Jaelyn McLean (1-0, 0.98 ERA) are all available for the Cougars; each has thrown 25 innings or more this season.
“If we come out with an aggressive mindset I think we’ll be fine,” Strickland said. “We’ve put together great at-bats all year. Just about every starter we’ve faced didn’t make it out of the fifth inning, sixth inning, so hopefully we can keep that trend going and keep working at-bats, getting people on, moving them over and getting them in.”
Gay leads the Cougars at the plate with a .373 average, two home runs and 18 RBI; Taylor has 16 RBIs and has scored 15 runs.
For St. Pauls, the entire pitching staff will be available except for Jaden Parker, who pitched 5 2/3 innings in Tuesday’s win.
Fairmont heads to Seaforth
The Fairmont baseball team is preparing to travel to Seaforth for a second-round game, with first pitch set for 7 p.m. Friday.
“Obviously they’re a pretty good team,” Fairmont coach Kelly Chavis said. “We’ve looked at their record; I think they’ve got four or five guys that swing the bat really well according to the information we’ve seen.”
No. 9 Seaforth (18-7) defeated No. 24 Princeton 7-0 in the first round on Tuesday, the Hawks’ 12th straight win. Seaforth has shut out two straight opponents, has allowed three total runs in its last four games and has allowed just 18 runs during its 12-game win streak, nine of which came in one game.
Chavis anticipates that Jaedyn Rader will start for Seaforth after he did not pitch in the Hawks’ first-round game.
“He’s about 82, 84; that’s pretty consistent with what we’ve seen pretty much all season,” Chavis said. “He’s a right-handed pitcher and he’s got pretty good numbers, and that’s about what we saw in the first round.”
No. 25 Fairmont (13-12) earned a 4-3 first-round win at No. 8 Camden County on Tuesday. After the ups and downs of the Golden Tornadoes’ season, Chavis hopes that their playoff win can give them some momentum as they continue deeper into the postseason.
“I think we can take a ton of momentum, because we saw that if we play good baseball — and I know every team can say it — but we really can play with anybody if we do the things we’re supposed to do,” Chavis said. “We got really good pitching from both of our guys on Tuesday night, and if they can continue to grind and keep us around the pitch counts that we’re asking them to keep us at, and we play sound defensively, then we’re pretty solid and I think we can carry some momentum into the second round.”
Fairmont pitchers Parker Chavis and Mynkoda Smith will both be available after each pitched in Tuesday’s game.
The winners of the St. Pauls-SouthWest Edgecombe and Fairmont-Seaforth games will meet each other in the third round, scheduled for Tuesday.
Sports editor Chris Stiles can be reached at 910-816-1977 or by email at [email protected]. You can follow him on X at @StilesOnSports.
