Homer’s classic epic The Odyssey received a modern remake in the Class 4A bi-district baseball playoff series between the Paris Wildcats and Spring Hill Panthers. Unfortunately for Paris, the Cats never found their way home as Spring Hill completed a 2-0 series sweep with a 5-0 shutout Saturday morning in a game played in the far-away port of Pollok, Texas.
How far are high school baseball coaches willing to go to salvage a best-of-3 playoff series? In the case of Paris head coach Bill Sikes and SH counterpart Mike Eckles, try an imaginery 383-mile journey that spanned 7 potential sites and took almost 54 hours to finish Game 1 from its original starting time to actual final pitch.
Game 1 ended in anti-climatic fashion late Friday night when a bases-loaded walk forced in the lone run of a 1-0 win by the Spring Hill Panthers with two outs in the bottom of the eighth inning at Pollok Central High School slightly north of Lufkin.
Game 2 took a similar path. It was scoreless until a 2-base leadoff error on a routine grounder to the pitcher’s mound opened the floodgates for a 4-run Panther rally. SH added a run in the seventh that proved unneeded against an anemic Paris offense that managed just 4 hits in the game against senior Eli Reagh.
The remarkable journey overshadowed an equally remarkable storyline on the field in Game 1. Panther senior Parker White, a 6-5 righthander who has signed to play at Paris Junior College, had a perfect game broken up a 2-out walk by No. 9 hitter Payton Barrios in the sixth inning. He lost his no-hitter in the top of the eighth inning when freshman Zach Norris reached base on an infield single.
White (9-1) finished with 11 strikeouts, the 1 hit, and just 2 walks (Drew Helberg drew the other free pass in the seventh).
Meanwhile, the Cats matched pitching gems with a gritty effort by junior Parker Channing, (pictured from earlier this season) who gave up just one solid single, a 2-out shot by dangerous leadoff hitter Hagen Tucker in the third inning. Channing then picked off the speedy Tucker trying to steal second.
Channing surrendered 4 hits overall, but 3 of those didn’t leave the infield. He walked 4 Panthers, but 2 of those were intentional in the fateful final inning, and he struck out 4 batters.
In the end, a season-long bugaboo for the Cats, a lack of offensive firepower, put pressure on the Paris defense and pitching and caused a fatal crack in the Cats’ hopes to upset the District 16-4A co-champions and gain a key edge in the series.
Colton Hopkins led off the eighth inning with a grounder to short and ended up at second base after a hurried throw to first was off-target. He was bunted to third by Jacob Moore. Paris then intentionally walked .500 hitter Tucker and Waylon McFaddin to load the bases with 1 out.
The Panthers tried to squeeze in the winning run on a bunt that Parker fielded and threw home in time to get the forceout. However, with 2 outs and Jared Blake at the plate, Parker lost command of the strike zone and walked in the game-winner on a 3-1 count.
Spring Hill (18-6) now moves on to next week’s area round against Crandall. Paris (9-15) has a whole off-season to try to relocate the bats. At least, Sikes should have some dependable pitching returning. Sophomore Phillip Sikes started Game 2 and had the Panthers in check until his bad throw to first started the SH uprising in the sixth.
The Panthers followed with a groundout and sacrifice fly by Blake, who wound up with both game-winning RBIs in the series. A hit batter, a series of stolen bases and trio of 2-out RBI singles sealed Sikes’ fate and brought in junior Philip Nance to finish the game on the mound.
So why did the teams have to go such great lengths to play baseball? Blame it on a combination of STAAR and Mother Nature.
The series was originally scheduled to start Wednesday night at the neutral halfway site of Mount Pleasant to try to stage Game 1 before a wet forecast precipitated the resulting baseball Odyssey. The University Interscholastic League clarified previously nebulous wording concerning allowable dates for playoff games during this week’s round of STAAR end of course testing.
So, to avoid conflict with STAAR, the series was reset for a planned doubleheader at PJC Hub Hollis Field on Friday night. Game 3, if needed, would be played Saturday at Spring Hill.
Then an unexpected round of heavy showers rolled through Wednesday night and made Lake Hub Hollis unplayable. As a result, the series shifted again to a Friday doubleheader at Spring Hill with Game 3, if needed, set for Saturday in Athens.
Wrong. Longview was hit by a downpour Thursday night. Change of plans again. This time it would be Athens for Games 1 and 2 Friday.
The plan was working up until 2 outs in the bottom of the sixth of a scoreless pitchers’ duel when lightning struck nearby the Athens High baseball field and halted play.
The teams tried to wait out the storm, but consistent heavy rain sent them scurrying for a drier alternative. The UIL demands that teams complete Game 1 of any playoff series by Friday midnight or the series automatically becomes a 1-game winner-take-all.
So the teams boarded their buses and headed east to Longview in hopes of out-running the storm system. They were too late, so they then turned their sights south for Nacogdoches and Central Heights High. That, too, became unreachable in time so they continued south and finally stopped at the rural consolidated district of Pollak Central to complete the epic.
So it is that the high school careers of seniors Helberg, Casey Reavis, Kaden Callihan, and Conner Hummel are over. The helm has been passed to a junior-laden core for the next adventure.