Both head coaches expressed their frustrations, and understandably so, following Wednesday night's baseball game between Midland Valley and North Augusta.
Missed opportunities hovered over both teams' heads, and that's going to happen when two young rival clubs square off with high stakes attached.
Second place in Region 4-AAAA was on the line heading into this week's three-game series, and it still will be Friday night. Midland Valley made more timely plays than North Augusta on Wednesday at Riverview Park in a 7-5 win, squaring the series and pushing all of the chips into the finale at Midland Valley.
"We're fortunate to win," said Midland Valley coach Brad Richardson. "They're a good ball club. Hats off to our pitching for battling, and some guys at the plate had some good at-bats. We had some guys that did some good things at the plate. But man, you hate it when you leave a lot of runs out there. A lot of runs we left out there that we could've got."
Both teams threatened to blow the game open on several occasions, but under the pressure they'd either make an inning-killing mistake or give the runs they did score right back in the next half.
That led to a 3-3 game after one inning, then 5-5 after two. A pair of runs in the top of the fourth stood up as the game-winners, as Midland Valley was able to overcome six errors in the field. Luke Busbee swung a hot bat all night, and Landon Johnson shut down the game in the bottom of the seventh with back-to-back strikeouts when North Augusta had two runners in scoring position and could have tied the game with a base hit.
"We're a flush-it, next-day type of mentality. That's what we've got to do in baseball, anyway," said North Augusta head coach Kevin Lynn. "This is a game of adjustments, and our message down there was we didn't adjust. We continued to do the same things over and over at the plate, chasing pitches that aren't strikes and getting ourselves behind in the count, and now we've got to swing at their pitch instead of forcing them to throw us something we can handle.
"Sometimes, our youth shows up a little more than what we hope. We knew that, at some point, it was going to be an issue. That's not an excuse. You've still got to be able to do - the things we're getting beat on are easy baseball mistakes that we're making, things that we've got to learn as a team. And we've got to learn faster."
With that, it all comes down to Friday in the Valley. Second place in the region, and the home playoff game that comes with it, goes to the winner. Airport already locked up the No. 1 spot in the region, and Aiken clinched the No. 4 seed by beating South Aiken on Monday and Wednesday.
"We knew we needed to win to have a possibility of finishing second," Richardson said. "We know we're already second or third. We gave the one away the other night (an 11-0 win by North Augusta). We didn't take a very good swing in the fight at all. I told them before the game, if you're going to be in a prize fight you want to take your best swings. I'm not necessarily saying we did that the whole game tonight, but we came up with some big moments in the game at some clutch times."
Busbee led the way for Midland Valley with three hits and an RBI, Johnson had two hits and Kam Langley drove in a pair of runs. Nate Evans picked up the win on the mound, and Johnson backed him up by striking out five in 2⅓ innings of relief.
Jaxon Jean had two of North Augusta's five hits, and he also reached base on an intentional walk. Dawson Campbell had a hit and was hit by a pitch, Walker Geddes did the same and added a walk, and Jordan Scott reached base three times without hitting the ball - he was walked twice and hit by a pitch. Scott recovered from a rocky start to put together a couple of quick innings, and Brady Jenkins struck out seven in 3⅓ scoreless innings of relief.
Lynn said his Jackets are a different team when Jean pitches, and his senior ace will get the ball Friday. That means the Mustangs, who have gone from back-to-back winless region seasons to now having a shot at 7-5 and second place, will have to be at their best to beat North Augusta's best.
"I think these boys, they've done a lot of winning," Lynn said. "The young guys have. Granted, it's JV level and it's different than winning at varsity, but they've won a lot of baseball games together. We've got some guys that have played in some big games on the varsity level in the past years, so experience is there in certain situations. But the kids have got to want to be in the moment. That's the biggest thing. They've got to want to be in the moment."
Ready or not, the moment is coming Friday.
