CALHOUN, Ga. — For a few moments, Chip Henderson was re-living a nightmare. It was only a year ago when Henderson’s highly-ranked Calhoun High School baseball team was unmercifully bounced from the GHSA Class AA playoffs with an error-filled pair of losses to Dublin.
Wednesday against second-round foe Callaway, the Yellow Jackets committed five first-inning errors, leading to two unearned runs. Fortunately for Henderson and the Jackets, senior Carter Harrison then took over. The pitcher regrouped to throw six scoreless innings and helped himself with a grand slam in an 8-2 first-game win. He later added another homer as Calhoun finished off the Cavaliers 7-2 in game two.
Calhoun (29-0) will next play the winner of today’s Toombs County/Berrien County deciding third game. The Jackets would host if Berrien wins and would travel if Toombs prevails.
“That had the taste of Dublin last year,” said Henderson of the Bad News Bears-esque start. “Fortunately today we were able to overcome it, regroup and come back. That’s a tribute to our senior leaders. Hats off to Carter Harrison. He didn’t press or get frustrated. He went back to work and we rallied for him.”
Calhoun’s first-game rally began in the third inning when Mott Hyde singled in one run and Landon Curtis drove in the tying and go-ahead runs. However, the score was still 3-2 in the sixth when a hit and Calhoun’s sixth error put Callaway runners on first and second with no outs. Harrison rallied to strike out the next two batters and, following a walk to lead the bases, fell behind Kane Keith 3-1 before getting him to ground out.
Harrison, who fanned 10 to improve to 11-0, then blew the game open in the bottom half with the grand slam, his seventh home run of the season.
“It wasn’t that bad,” Harrison said, trying to downplay the team’s poor start. “I think we may have been too relaxed, maybe not thinking Callaway was as good as what we played in the first round.”
Calhoun didn’t take long to take control of game two as senior first baseman Jordan Poole hit a mammoth three-run homer to right-center in the first inning. The early runs made it easy for sophomore pitcher Austin Norrell, who pitched a complete-game, four-hitter with seven strikeouts.
“I still don’t think we’ve played our best baseball,” Henderson said, “and it’s like I told them, it only gets tougher from here. We can’t play like we started out in the next round or we’ll go home.”