BY NOAH GRIFFITH
FOR THE OBSERVER
AUBURN —
Lee-Scott baseball is 18-8, and it has outscored opponents 81-8 during a torrid past week with a sweep of Southern Prep and a win apiece over Sherwood and Valiant Cross.
Assistant coach Jacob Ozment said towards the beginning of the season that his team needs to see themselves have success, and they’ve done a lot of that as of late, particularly on the offensive end. The Warriors, as of the end of last week, had a team batting average of .282 with a .460 OBP.
According to Ozment, getting a healthy Hutch Sprayberry back in the lineup has been a factor in the offensive improvement, but they’ve also benefitted from playing with the order and maximizing their efficiency based on matchups.
“[Our lineup] is always going to be situational based on how we want to pitch and catch,” Ozment explained. “With Lane (Eddins) being able to pitch and catch, Kade (Hudson) pitching and catching, Jake (Cummings) being able to pitch and catch and Sam (Jackson) doing both as well. It all depends on how [head coach Tim Hudson] wants to attack the series and set up our defense, but we’re starting to settle into some spots as the season wraps up.
“We’re just taking it a game at a time and get as many game reps with as many guys as possible.”
However, the week leading up to the offensive explosion, Lee-Scott struggled to produce against Montgomery’s Macon-East. The Warriors dropped two of three with the Knights while only scoring three runs on six hits.
Although Auburn High transfers Eddins and Garrett West threw strong, complete-game starts to begin the series, the offense couldn’t dig itself out of a slump to help their starters out. In game three, the combination of Jack McKay, Pearson Little, Harrison Short and Hudson combined to go seven innings with nine strikeouts, allowing four earned runs. But again, the Warriors’ only run came from West driving home freshman Haiden Harper.
“The Macon-East series, we struggled offensively,” Ozment said. “You don’t want to take anything away from them, but in three games, I think our batting average was like .096. [Macon-East] threw strikes, and they made plays where they needed to. Hard for us to win games that way.”
Lee-Scott has seven games remaining in the regular season: a double-header with Edgewood, a three-game series with Springwood and a doubleheader with a tough Calvary team to close out the season at home. The Warriors started off the season by dropping a contest at Calvary in extra innings in walk-off fashion.
The Warriors will look to avenge that loss and solidify their strongest lineup for what Ozment said will likely be a road-heavy playoff journey.
“We’re willing to take the challenge in front of us head on and just be able to focus in on the task at hand,” Ozment said. “Now, use this month of April to get ourselves prepared as best we can with region play on Mondays and Tuesdays and a quality opponent in Edgewood. And then everyone knows Calvary is a great team. That’s kind of our last doubleheader day, so that can help us prepare for the postseason.”
