CONTRIBTUED TO THE OBSERVER
OPELIKA —
TENNIS
Southern Christian Athletics is an organization that provides homeschoolers and private Christian schoolers ages 12 to 18 with competitive athletic opportunities at the varsity and junior varsity levels. A tennis program has now been added to the list of available sports. The inaugural 2023 season has been an exciting one for the SCA Patriots. While only a boys team was assembled for the first season, SCA said it is hopeful that a girls team can be formed as well for next season.
The team consists of seven boys: William Pack, Robert Pack, Josiah Frick, Jonathan Lech, Jedd Scott, Jagger Scott and James Lech. They currently have two wins and one loss for the regular season. On April 10 and 11, the team played in the Trinity Team State Invitational at Grand National. While the Patriots did not win the tournament, many hard-fought matches were victorious, including a sweep of all his singles matches by the No. 1 seed William Pack.
One more match remains for the season, which will be played on April 24 against East Central at Yarbrough Tennis Center in Auburn, the Patriots’ home courts. The Patriots are looking forward to another exciting season next year. Anyone interested in joining the team can reach out to Jason Scott at 334-750-2794, or email patriots.sca@gmail.com.
BASEBALL
As April marches beyond the halfway point, Southern Christian Athletics’ baseball team is making progress in its second year.
On April 6, the junior varsity traveled to Pinson Valley to take on East Central Homeschool and came away with a 9-0 victory. Jedd Scott went the distance on the mound, striking out four in the time-shortened contest. Jagger Scott slugged two doubles and a triple while J.D. Davis contributed two singles in the winning effort. SCA’s varsity kept things going in the finale with a 14-8 win over East Central. Jayden McKee pitched five innings and had three hits; Jagger collected four hits and four runs batted in while finishing up on the mound in relief.
On April 7, the SCA JV team traveled to Phenix City to face Glenwood’s formidable squad and came out on the short end of an 8-0 shutout.
Then, on April 14, SCA traveled to Montgomery for two games against Ezekiel Academy. Both varsity and JV came up short, losing by scores of 16-5 and 9-6, respectively.
With little rest, the JV team regrouped the next day to take on local rival Trinity and came out on top with a 6-3 score. Jedd scattered four hits and struck out seven while he and Jaxon Frazier each had a pair of hits. Head coach Jason Scott and assistant Judson Scott are developing players from the ground floor, many of whom are playing the game for the very first time. Most of the players are learning to play multiple positions and play more than one position in a given game.
Jagger is hitting around .500 at the time of writing and McKee leads the team with an earned run average of 3.50.
Rainouts and scheduling issues have presented challenges for the Patriots, but the team shows a resilient spirit as it continues to learn and grow.