By Bob Sutton
Special to The Alamance News
The best stretch of the season for Southern Alamance’s baseball team came in the postseason and that’s something the Patriots can take pride in, coach Jason Smith said.
“It was an under-whelming regular season, at least not to our standards,” Smith said. “But we got it figured out for the postseason.”
The Patriots made it all the way to the Class 6-A East Region championship series before falling last week, marking Southern’s first time in a regional finals in 20 years.
“We performed in big spots,” Smith said. “We got some big hits at the right times.”
Members of the senior class for the Patriots were part of the most postseason baseball wins of any class at the school in two decades. The team reached the regional semifinals last year.
Southern Lee pinned a 13-3 loss on the Patriots in Game 3 of the regional finals Friday night in Sanford. That came just two days after Southern Alamance halted the Cavaliers’ 19-game winning streak in Game 2.
The final game for the Patriots (17-14) went awry when their pitchers issued 12 walks and hit six batters.
In last week’s Game 2, Southern Alamance won 12-2 in 4½ innings at home with Nathan McNeal throwing a complete game with 10 strikeouts. Kaden Parker smacked a grand slam and Jackson Vaughn drove in two runs.
Southern Lee (29-4) faces South Caldwell (23-6), the West Region titlist, in the state championship series later this week in Burlington.
