Playoff games were fun, unexpected

Published 12:00 am Thursday, May 7, 2009

High school baseball is over in the Miss-Lou.

But it was a surprising run for a couple of teams.

The Trinity Saints snuck past Oak Forest in three games before falling to Copiah Academy, arguably the second best MPSA Class AA team.

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The Saints used a commanding pitching and defensive performance to keep the Yellow Jackets to just two runs in the doubleheader finalé of the first round after falling 15- in the first round.

To be honest, no one really expected Trinity to make it past the first round of the playoffs.

The Saints lost to Adams County Christian in the regular season. The Rebels took the district title but fell in the first round to Simpson Academy in two games.

And when Trinity left 15 runners stranded in a 10-8 loss in game one against Oak Forest, most people thought the Saints’ run would be over with an on-the-road doubleheader.

But the Saints hushed their critics and even put together a decent performance in round two, despite losing 8-3, 13-5.

Trinity only struggled in a couple of innings — especially in the seventh inning of the second game, when the Colonels scored six runs.

But the Saints are only losing one player to graduation, and with the strong team moving down from AA to A next season, Trinity will definitely be a heavy contender in the 2010 season.

Vidalia can say the same thing.

Jake Deweese is the only Viking baseball player to graduate this month, and with Mason Ozburn returning on the mound next season, Vidalia has a lot to look forward to.

The No. 24-seed Vikings upset No. 9-seed Iowa (La.) on the road in the first round, avenging their 17-7 loss to the Yellow Jackets in the 2008 bi-district round.

Vidalia coach Johnny Lee Hoffpauir called in one of the top-five wins in Vidalia baseball history, and it sent the Vikings to an improbable round two in a weird one-and-done playoff system.

Although the Vikings fell to Catholic school E.D. White at home in the second round, they showed a lot of promise for what is to come.

Ozburn’s presence on the mound, coupled with much-improved batting, is a sign of things to come, even if the LHSAA playoff system is more confusing next year — with a power-point system being put in place.

The most shocking, but entertaining, series might have been for the team expected to go the farthest in the postseason.

Cathedral was unbeaten in 23 games during the regular season, and while plenty of those games were against teams that matched up worse than the Cavaliers and Pistons in round one of the 2009 NBA Playoffs, the Green Wave had definitely demonstrated their dominance of MHSAA Class 1A.

But you should never underestimate the power of a good, old-fashioned rivalry.

Cathedral played nothing like itself in game one of the second round, falling 15-6 to St. Aloysius.

Game two was much more exciting, playing to eight innings, but Cathedral was eventually bested 7-6 by the Flashes to end their hopes of a third state title.

With all the high school baseball finished for the year, Chester Willis and the Vidalia Baseball fields will be pretty quiet for a while.

I guess now I have to turn on TNT and root for the Rockets against the Lakers.