Red Bay eliminates Sumiton Christian, advances to playoff quarterfinals for third consecutive season

For the third straight season, the Red Bay Tigers are headed to the Class 2A baseball playoff quarterfinals.

After routing Sumiton Christian 13-3 in the opening game of its best-of-three series in the second round, the No. 6-ranked Red Bay High School varsity baseball team pulled off a 2-1 win in extra innings in game two to eliminate the Eagles.

“It was good to put some stuff together, some stuff we’ve been working on the last few weeks. We just trusted the process of our work, and in this series I think we saw some of the fruits of our labor,” Red Bay head coach Donovan Hand told the Franklin Free Press.

Led by several impressive performances in the batters box, the Tigers’ offense exploded late in game one, scoring eight of its 13 runs in the last two innings of the contest.

In fact, it was Sumiton Christian that struck first. In the bottom of the first inning, the Eagles’ Reid Cornelius smacked a solo home run over the right field wall to give the hosts an early 1-0 advantage.

But Sumiton’s lead wouldn’t last very long. Red Bay responded in the top of the second inning and went ahead 2-1 on a two-run base knock by designated hitter Joshua Thorne. He would finish the contest 2-for-5 at the plate with three RBIs after later, in the fourth inning, recording an RBI single that scored sophomore Davien Colburn and made it a 3-1 game.

The Tigers then went off for 10 runs to close out the final three innings of play. In the fifth, sacrifice flies by Ayden Pruitt and Sawyer Humphries allowed runners to tag up and score two run. The sixth inning saw Red Bay plate four runs on consecutive RBI singles by Landyn Lewey, Colburn and Humphries. And then RBHS wrapped up its scoring in the top of the seventh with four runs scored off base hits by Pruitt and Colburn and a double by Lewey making it a 13-2 game.

Sumiton would tack on one more run in the bottom of the seventh to make it a 10-run game but didn’t have the ammo to make a comeback attempt.

Pruitt, Colburn, Humphries and Thorne all had multi-RBI games at the dish. Colburn, who went a perfect 5-for-5 in his at-bats, recorded three RBIs, as did Thorne and Pruitt. Humphries had two RBIs and drew a walk.

On the mound, Carson McGee ultimately never needed as much offense as his teammates provided him. He went six innings and allowed just one earned run off six hits while striking out six batters. Lewey came in in relief at the end of the game and allowed one unearned run off two hits and had one strikeout.

“Carson (McGee) has been good for us all season and we felt confident with him on the mound,” Hand said. “And obviously with 17 hits and 13 runs in game one, we were able to do a lot of good things.”

Red Bay would finish off Sumiton Christian in game two, though it took an extra inning to do so.

On the mound, Red Bay’s Jeremiah Thorne and Sumiton’s Colton Glass battled and kept the game scoreless through five innings before the deadlock was broken. The Eagles struck first after a walk, a sacrifice bunt and a single put a baserunner in position to score on a passed ball, making it 1-0.

Down to their final three outs in regulation, however, Red Bay found a way to even things back up. In the bottom of the seventh, Colburn led off the inning with a triple which was followed by a game-tying RBI double by Riley Carpenter.

“Davo had an unbelievable day for us. He was 7-for-9 on the day, had some RBIs, used his speed and stole a couple bases, and was just able to get things happening for us,” he said of Colburn. “He hit that triple and it ran Glass out of the game; he just ran out of pitches. Our goal was to get Glass out of the game, but the bonus was the triple and it allowed us get the tying run and go to extra innings.”

In the eighth, Colburn again came up with the contact needed to give the Tigers the walk-off. After Pruitt drew a walk to leadoff, he stole second before Lewey moved him over to third with a sac bunt. All that was needed was some contact from Colburn to bring Pruitt in; he provided it, his hit causing the relief pitcher Cornelius into an error and Pruitt to cross home plate.

“Game two went about how I expected it to go. Glass for them is very talented and he gave us all he wanted and then some for as long as he was in there,” Hand said. “It was a dogfight and the series was a battle, but we got to win two different ways and I feel like that’ll help us down the stretch.”

Valuably, taking the first two games allowed the Tigers to avoid a winner-take-all game three. Hand said an extra day of rest is massive at this point of a long campaign.

“At this time of year everyone is a little tired. Some of our guys played football, some played basketball and some have played all three sports, so to me the extra day is huge recovery-wise,” he said. “Not having to worry about the mental part of (a game three) along with the physical recovery and just having that added day to breathe is just as big as anything else.”

The series victory also sends Red Bay to the playoff quarterfinals for the third straight season, a new feat for the program. Hand praised his four seniors and his assistant coaches for their role in making Tiger history and helping build the program to where it is now.

“I don’t think (three straight playoff appearances) has been done here since the early ‘90s and I’m not sure there’s ever been three straight runs to the Elite Eight at least,” the head caoch said. “Jeremiah Thorne, Landyn Lewey, Ayden Pruitt, Carson McGee—these guys have been here for a while. They are a part of 70-plus wins and I jokingly say they’ve got more playoff wins now than I had (total) wins my first two years here. It’s a testament to those guys and their hard work.

“And I want to say that my coaching staff is second to none. They’re there, they show up every day and really coach these kids. I know there may be better coaches out there but there’s no better people,” he added.

Hand called Red Bay baseball’s growth and accomplishment since he took the reins “very humbling.”

“I’ve been in baseball for a long time, played for a long time and done a lot of great things, but one of my most favorite things is seeing these kids buy in and work hard. These are the memories they’ll never forget,” he said. “I’m proud of where our program’s at. People are always donating and chipping in…so these guys are taken care of, but it’s not because they haven’t worked hard. They’ve worked really hard to get to this point and I’m very, very proud of them and this program.

“As a whole program—varsity, JV, junior high—we’ve played three full teams and we were 49-11. We had some big wins against bigger schools, not only at the varsity level but at the JV and junior high level. It’s just a testament to the consistency that we’ve had and can hopefully sustain for a long time,” Hand added.

In the third round, Red Bay will host North Sand Mountain and play for the opportunity of reaching the semifinals for third time in school history.

“We’re going to prepare for them the same way we do every week. We’re going to prepare for them like they’re the New York Yankees and if they turn out not to be then that’s okay, but we’re going to try to put ourselves in position to have an opportunity to play in the semis again after this week,” Hand said.

Games one and two will be played on Tuesday, May 5 at 4:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. with an if-necessary game three to be played the following day at 4 p.m.