HAHIRA – The Valwood Valiants (4-3) couldn’t keep up with the hot-hitting bats of the Hamilton County Trojans (5-1), falling behind early and losing 9-5 Monday night.

While the scoring didn’t start until the third inning, perhaps the most bizarre moment happened in the bottom of the second inning when a fan was tossed after arguing with the umpire over a strike call.

“It happens at every baseball park,” head coach Robert Shipman said of the incident. “Fans disagree, whether is be strike zones, whether it be calls at first, second or third; or whether it be balls and strikes. It happens at every ballpark. I feel like I’ve seen it at every ballpark, so it’s part of the game.”

Additionally, the second inning came to abrupt end after sophomore courtesy runner Triston White was ruled as an illegal substitute as he was not on the lineup card.

Shipman admitted fault to leaving White off the lineup following the game.

“That’s me trying to do the lineup card before the game instead well ahead of time,” Shipman said. “I told the team that as your leader, I dropped the ball, and if there’s a lot of fingers pointing around, I’m starting with me first. I left Triston right off the lineup, and that’s the first guy I wanted to get to. If I wanted to keep anybody in the lineup, it should have been him.”

Those two incidents seemingly turned the game on its head as the Trojans took advantage in the very next inning.

Despite quickly recording two outs, the Valiants found the third out to be elusive. Senior pitcher Emory Hogan in particular had multiple chances to close out the inning, but a hit by pitch and a wild pitch helped bring in two Trojan baserunners to make it 2-0.

The Valiants responded in the bottom half of the third when junior shortstop Dalton Smith brought in junior designated hitter David Griffin. However, a pair of pop flies ended the inning with two stranded on base.

As the pitch count continued to climb for Hogan, so did the Trojans’ lead. Two more Trojans reached home, with a double by Julian Garcia making it 4-1.

Despite giving up four runs, Hogan did record seven strikeouts in four innings.

Shipman believed that Hogan had a couple of bad breaks, resulting in the Trojans’ bats getting hot.

“When Emory is rolling, man he has command of two of his four pitches,” Shipman said. “Today, he didn’t get a couple of breaks that he normally got, and I think he was a little bit irritated by it. He’s a doggone good pitcher. The last two years, he’s been solid for us. Moving forward, we’re going to do a better job of controlling out emotions, controlling things that we can control and not worry about something that he can’t control.”

Junior catcher Dallas Hatfield got the Valiants on the board again with a single to bring in junior Jack Drew. Unfortunately, the Valiants’ offense was again grounded to a halt.

The Trojans continued to pad their lead in the fifth inning with freshman Dywan Powell now up on the mound after starting the day at third base. A single from Landon Smith turned into a two-run play for the Trojans as they took a 6-2 lead.

The Valiants again chipped away at the lead in the bottom of the fifth, but not before a double play resulted in both Smith and freshman outfielder Maddox Coile being thrown out.

Still, a wild pitch from Brantley McCoy allowed junior second baseman Cory Backe to reach home, and a double from freshman Matthew Kerrigan brought in junior first baseman Conner Hutto.

However, the Trojans took a commanding 9-4 lead in the sixth inning, with Garcia kicking off the charge with a single before stealing second and ultimately reaching home on a pair of wild pitches. Garcia, who came into the game leading the team in batting average, went 3-4 at bat.

Catching proved to be the Achilles’ heel for Valwood as the Valiants racked up eight wild pitches over the course of the game. Shipman remains confident that his catchers will improve as the season rolls along.

“That’s the X-factor we gotta get fixed,” Shipman said. “There’s a couple of guys that’s working really hard to get it done. We got between, Emory, our senior, and he’s gonna catch when he’s not pitching; between Hatfield and our freshman that we put back there that at the end of the game, we’re gonna get it done.”

Shipman had high praise for Garcia, saying his pitchers did everything they could to shut him down.

“He never took a bad swing the whole night, and he had a ton of bat speed,” Shipman said. “He just looks like he’s seeing it real well. We threw every pitch we could at him. The kid did a good job of, just on tough pitches, fouling them off or shooting them the other way, and on pitches that he could really handle, he hit it hard. He’s really swinging the bat well.”

Drew would eventually go to the mound in relief of Powell, striking out two and giving up no hits over the final stretch of the game. However, the Valiants just didn’t have enough left in the tank on offense.

A pop fly to center field by Hutto helped bring in Coile in the bottom of the seventh, but Valwood’s last ditch comeback attempt was thwarted when Powell got thrown out.

With region play on the horizon, Shipman’s biggest priorities for his team are to score more runs and improve on defense.

“The only thing that I’m concerned about at this point is number one, scoring runs when we get run-scoring opportunities, especially with no outs or one out,” Shipman said. “Two-out hits won’t hurt either, but when we have the opportunity to tack on runs, we need to do so.”

Shipman added: “[We just have to] tighten up the defense. There were a couple plays here and there on the infield tonight that probably could have went easier than it actually did. … I’m gonna leave here, and our guys, just looking into their eyes, they’re all encouraged and ready to go and ready to get ourselves in shapes and gear up for region play.”

UP NEXT

Valwood will be back at home to face the Clinch County Panthers (7-2) on March 9 at 6 p.m. The Valiants beat the Panthers 13-7 in their meeting in Homerville on Feb. 15.