Saints bury Hounds 15-0
Published 3:56 am Sunday, April 11, 2010
NATCHEZ — Huntington baseball coach Matt Mason was in familiar territory at Chester Willis Field Saturday afternoon.
But instead of being in the home dugout, Mason found himself in the visitor’s dugout, and he didn’t really enjoy the experience.
Coaching at Chester Willis Field for the first time as Huntington’s coach after spending the previous five years at Trinity, Mason watched the Saints pitch and hit their way to a 15-0 victory over the Hounds in just three innings.
“Trinity has a good team, and that’s no surprise to me,” Mason said. “I’ve been around a lot of those kids for many years. You’ve got to play real good baseball if you want to beat them and we didn’t do that today.”
Trinity pitcher Givonni Dent pitched a one-hit shutout, with eight of the nine outs being recorded by strikeout.
Trinity also had 11 hits in the game, with Trevor Faust, Sky Logan and Andrew Moroney hitting doubles.
Logan, Dent and Jake Winston also had multiple hits in the victory.
It was a tough ending to a tough day for Mason, who found coaching against the players he helped come through the Trinity baseball program difficult.
“It’s not easy,” Mason said. “Most of these kids I’ve been around since seventh grade. It’s hard to coach against kids you’ve been around that long. It’s bittersweet. You hate to lose the game but on the other hand, you wish Trinity the best of luck as they go forward.”
It’s a feeling that current Trinity coach Mitch Ashmore knows well.
Ashmore, the former longtime Huntington coach who won a state championship at the school, had his own homecoming moment Tuesday in Trinity’s 12-0 over Huntington in Ferriday.
“It was a different feeling,” Ashmore said. “I was there for so long and have a lot of great memories. But I just have to do the job I have here at Trinity. It was full of emotion, and I’m glad to get through it.”
But Ashmore will have to get used to that feeling again as the District 6-A tournament will take place at Huntington next week.
Trinity is officially the host school, but can’t host the tournament at Chester Willis Field due to scheduling conflicts.
Trinity (12-5, 8-0) is the top seed in the tournament after finishing the district schedule undefeated.
Huntington (6-12, 4-4) will be the No. 3 seed in the four-team tournament.
“We haven’t accomplished anything yet,” Ashmore said. “We still have to win the district tournament to be the No. 1 seed in the playoffs. We still have a lot of work to do.”