MOULTRIE – If there was a day for the Colquitt County High baseball pitching to not come through, Wednesday was it … and the Packers were still big winners.

Raines Plant’s two-run home run in the top of the seventh inning provided the winning margin for Colquitt County and head coach Tony Kirkland at Thomas County-Central. In what was the Packers’ sixth out-of-town game (all non-region) in a row since March 23, they defeated the Yellow Jackets 7-6 on an evening where TC-C scored in each of the first five innings.

The return to action on Ike Aultman Field at Jerry Croft Stadium is tonight, and something has to give. The co-leaders of Region 1-7A, Colquitt and the Lowndes High Vikings, are not only tied in record at 5-1 – each’s loss is to the other squad when they played two in Valdosta March 9 – but they are simply not letting people score against them. While the Packers pitched consecutive shutouts vs. Tift County on March 23, Lowndes hasn’t yielded any scoring in a region contest since Colquitt won Game 1 March 9 4-0. That’s five straight game’s worth of ‘goose eggs.’

Kirkland used the recent two-week non-region stretch to get more of his pitching staff mound work. He said multiple hurlers worked the game Wednesday.

“We weren’t very effective (at TC-C),” said Kirkland, whose team still improved to 15-6 overall. “We gave up a lot of free bases and put a little bit of pressure on our offense to be able to score. In a lot of the games where we’ve fell short, we neglected our pitchers offensively. (Wednesday) was a nice day to have 11 hits, 10 from the No. 4 spot down.

“It was a nice lift to get into ‘playing Lowndes on Friday’ mode. These guys have talked about winning the region for many months now.”

It may be more often than not in the history of baseball at any level that a team’s offense struggled at the beginning, where someone says, ‘We just need to get the bats going.’ On April 5, Colquitt County had a team batting average of .293. Four regulars – the usual top four in the order – have averages above .300. Plant is the leader at .403 with the most hits (27) and RBI (15).

“The problem was, you got through the No. 4 spot, we fell off a great deal,” said Kirkland. “We’ve made some changes at the bottom half and are getting a lot more production as of late. Constantly trying to get to the top of the lineup is very difficult.”

What’s going to be difficult is facing that Lowndes pitching that’s on its own roll. The Vikings are also 15-6, and Kirkland said they have a “very special” staff.

“Hitting is a special art anyway. The better that guy is on the bump, the more difficult that task is,” said Kirkland. “It challenges you to stay in your approach.

“If you match them up with us … they have a special lefty, a power arm, a guy who knows how to get people out. That’s exactly what we have. As far as matchups, it’s going to be who’s able do the most and who makes the fewest mistakes.”

Not only did the Packers and Vikings split already at Lowndes, both games were 4-0 finals. In terms of record, either someone will leave Packer Park winning the 2018 season series, or they will be right back where they were when the doubleheader started. In the case of another split, the margins then come into play for a tiebreaker.

Kirkland said nothing is more important than Game 1.

“You win the first one, your mentality has to be to go ahead and seal it in the second game,” he said. “You lose the first one, you better find some way to mentally recover and come back to win the second ball game. Tiebreakers are strange things in a small region.”

But no, this is not the ‘region championship’ series. Despite what’s already happened, Colquitt County has to pack up the bus the following two weekends and play 1-7A doubleheaders at Camden County and Tift County. Lowndes must face both of them also, the Blue Devils at home and at Camden.

THE COLQUITT ARMS

Ethan Phillips etched his name into Packer baseball lore with a no-hit shutout of McEachern in the opening round of the 2017 7A playoffs in Moultrie.

“The atmosphere, and the love my teammates showed at the end of it,” said Phillips about his memories of that April night. “I don’t know if I’ll ever forget that moment.”

Phillips showed that kind of potential as Kirkland’s No. 2 starter, a role thrust upon him due to circumstances that plagued the team throughout the season. He’s come back for his senior year and is sporting a 0.25 earned run average in 28 1/3 innings (one earned run allowed, three overall) with 30 strikeouts.

“It filled me with a lot of energy,” said Phillips, still talking about the ‘no-no.’ “It motivated me to go out there and do what I do: try to throw strikes and allow my teammates to get the ‘W.’”

The only way to do that, according to Phillips, was through practice, work, focus and being positive.

“The first-pitch fastball,” said Phillips, getting technical about is stuff on the mound. That’s how he gets ahead, throwing in the mid-80s. The curve ball gets the outs.

“I have a cutter and a change-up. I like starting some batters off with the fastball, then hit every other one with a cutter just to throw them off.”

Cory Newsome still doesn’t know how the Atlanta Braves are doing, which is fine because they just started their new season last week.

Kirkland eluded to Newsome’s lack of interest in what goes on in the baseball world outside of his own team when the senior signed to play for Gordon State. The coach said Newsome has a ‘gimme the ball’ mentality, and he’s received it the most of any Packer so far, 10 appearances with three wins and two saves.

“I love baseball, but I don’t really watch it that much,” said Newsome. “It makes me want to play when I watch it.

“I just go out there, and I have the mentality of … it’s just a game. I just have fun and do whatever I can for my teammates. I try to throw to the best of my ability.”

In a team-leading 35 1/3 innings, Newsome has the team high of 33 strikeouts to only five walks. To do what he can to help, Newsome plays some first base, and he has six base hits and no errors.

But it goes back to that sidearm delivery and the issues it presents to the opposing hitters. He started pitching that way in 10th grade.

“I like striking batters out,” said Newsome explaining why he stuck with it. “Usually I start them out with a fastball, but I feel comfortable with any pitch (coach Taylor Barber) calls.”

He also throws the curve ball and change-up, but in the discussion he backtracked a bit to say the curve is more of a slider.

“A lot of times when I throw it, as soon as I release it, I think I hit the batter,” said Newsome. “But then it breaks right in. It’s like a relief. ‘Yeah, I struck him out!’ It’s hard to hit. It’s probably my best.”

Those are the right arms, two of them. Some expressions state that if the right hand doesn’t get you, the left hand will. Dylan Collins is the left arm of this rotation that gives Kirkland a lot of choices to make for doubleheaders like today’s.

Collins is unbeaten at 4-0 with a 1.31 earned run average. His game is power-based with 32 strikeouts to seven walks in 26 2/3 innings.

“We have a great atmosphere out here,” said Collins on sure joy of being on the Packer team. “It’s a fun group to play around. We play well together. This season, we’ve shocked some people, shocked ourselves a little bit. We have a lot of talent at a lot of different places on the field.”

In Collins’ fastball, there’s the “lefty movement” and velocity in the upper 80s. He saw some of that level early in the 2017 season, but he feels he turned a corner when he pitched against Lowndes in Valdosta this season and got speeds of 88 and 89 mph.

There’s also a change-up he’ll throw at any count, and a “hard-biting” slider that’s he’s still trying to develop. Collins said the curve is on some days, not so much on others.

In addition to the Newsome and shortstop Gavin Patel deals to play for Gordon State, Kirkland said Phillips is committed to ABAC, Collins to Northwest Florida State and Plant to Thomas University.