Early season struggles, setbacks see Phil Campbell start 1-4

It’s been a tough start to the 2024 campaign for the Phil Campbell High School varsity baseball team. Coming off a 2023 season that saw the Bobcats reach the semifinals of the AHSAA Class 3A playoffs, Phil Campbell holds a 1-4 record through the first five games and has faced some unforeseeable and uncontrollable setbacks.

“Right now one of the biggest things is we’ve not had a full roster available yet,” Phil Campbell head coach Griffin Harris said. “Whether it be injury or, you know, we’ve been hit with COVID and having guys out with COVID. We’ve not had a full roster to be able to put guys in certain places that would make us the most successful.”

Early season weather, a notorious nuisance for local baseball coaches, also shares some blame as Griffin said his team has not been able to put as much time on the field as he would otherwise have liked.

“We got iced in for 10 days so we lost several practice days there,” Harris said. “When it finally melts it's still wet and so you don’t get to get on the field and get a lot of reps. It feels like it rains every other day, you know, so that could contribute to why we’re behind a little bit defensively.”

“Still, that’s no excuse. You’ve still got to make the plays,” he added

The season started for the Bobcats on Feb. 16 when they hosted Central. Phil Campbell lost on opening day 4-3 but rebounded with a 9-8 home win against Tharptown. Cale Faust and Cody Quinn each had three RBIs against the Wildcats and Braxton Mayfield earned the win with a three-inning, one-hit performance.

“We swung (the bats) a little better that game, and had some big hits at the top of the order,” Harris said. “We took advantage of some mistakes that they made. The biggest difference, really, is that we were able to hit, put it in play.” 

Since the victory over Tharptown, the Bobcats have been on a three-game slide, losing 6-2 against Winston County before back-to-back defeats to Mars Hill, 6-0 and 11-7, respectively.

In his team’s first five games Harris said it’s some of the fundamentals–not hitting the ball and not executing routine plays–that are hurting Phil Campbell. The first-year head coach is hopeful those issues will work themselves out as the team gets healthy and players get more reps.

“We’ve struggled offensively as far as we’re striking out too much, but hopefully that’s going to fix itself the more pitching we see,” Harris said. “And we’re making too many errors but some of that is coming with guys having to play positions they’re not comfortable playing.”

If viewed on paper, 2024 could be seen as a rebuilding year for Phil Campbell. In that respect the team’s current record could be justified. The Bobcats graduated 10 seniors from last year’s squad and Harris said a lot of his players are making the transition from junior varsity to varsity ball, a step that takes time. 

“It’s not that the guys we have aren’t talented because they’re talented. They won 17 or 18 games on JV last year,” he said. “It’s just adjusting to that jump of JV to varsity and just getting all the pieces in the right places.”

Still, the Bobcats are not totally green, and a “rebuilding year” doesn’t appear to be the attitude Harris is taking towards the season. There are experienced returners that will need to perform well for Phil Campbell to accomplish its goals of making the playoffs and another run at a blue map. One such returner, according to Harris, is Eli Taylor, who recorded five strikeouts in Phil Campbell’s season-opener against Central.

“Eli Taylor is the ace of the staff,” he said. “He went 10-3 last year. We’re going to need him to have another good year on the mound.” 

Harris also mentioned Koltin Hester and Cody Quinn as two others crucial to this season’s project.

“Koltin Hester threw a lot of innings last year. He’s just now getting back healthy,” Harris said. “He’s going to be a big piece, I think, on the mound and offensively. He’ll play in the infield somewhere, possibly shortstop.”

“Cody Quinn returns as another starter, and he’s kind of been our utility guy right now. Whoever pitches he kind of moves around into that spot. But he’s going to have a really good year offensively for us to have a chance to make a run in the playoffs,” he added.

Cale Faust, Braxton Mayfield, and Chandler Bedford were also among the names Harris said have and will hopefully continue to make an impact as the season progresses.

“It’s not how you start, it’s how you finish” may be among the most played out sentences in the English language, but it’s a cliche for a reason, and it’s true when it comes to the high school baseball season. Despite the 1-4 start, Harris isn’t worried just yet. The record, especially this early, isn’t important and he’s said as much to his team.

“What we’ve preached to (the players) so far is, you know, we don’t play a weak schedule. We play some good teams, and we’re not so much worried about win-loss record,” Harris said. “We’ve preached to them to just keep plugging away, keep working, and some of our problems are going to work themselves out and fix themselves.”

“There’s only really four games on the schedule that matter and that’s our two area series,” he added. “If we go into the playoffs with five wins and, you know, however many losses we may have, well, we’ve still made the playoffs. Your ultimate goal is a state championship. So we’re just taking it a day at a time and trying to get better.”