DALTON, Ga. — Bob Brotherton saw the opportunity to test his baseball team, and he jumped at it.
The Dalton High School coach had just seen the Catamounts lose a game they had no business losing, 12-6 to North Paulding, and Brotherton wanted to make sure his veteran squad would never forget it. The next morning he held a three-and-a-half-hour practice that clearly got the players’ attention.
“It woke them up, I guarantee you that,” Brotherton said. “We didn’t pick up a bat, but we did have a good ol’ come-to-Jesus talk. I told them, ‘You just embarrassed yourself and that uniform, and it won’t happen again.’ I don’t know if it was because of the practice, but they haven’t lost since.”
The Catamounts have won their last 10 games, eight of them Region 7-AAAA contests, to improve to 16-4 and 9-1 in league games. A team that was struggling to squeeze out one-run wins is now winning by five or six. Since the loss, the Cats have scored 10 or more runs six times.
The key, though, according to Brotherton, has been a pitching staff that has overcome the loss of expected ace Alex Roberts, who left the team just before the winning streak started. In his absence, Colton Kinnamon has won several big games to improve to 6-0, while Will Kiker and Brandon Dell have combined to go 9-2.
“Our pitching has been exceptional,” Brotherton said. “We recently beat South Paulding, Woodland and Hillgrove when each team was in first place, and our pitchers have kept us in every game. Also, our hitting has picked up. We’re starting to really spray the ball around.”
While the Cats lost depth on the mound with Roberts’ decision, they gained a huge presence in the batter’s box and the dugout with the return of junior Toombs Norman, who played for the first last week after injuring his knee late in the football season. He didn’t take long to make his mark, knocking in the tying runs late in the Hillgrove game in his first action of the season.
“That was my first time seeing live pitching all year, and their pitcher was probably one of the hardest throwers we’ve seen,” said Norman, who underwent five months of rehabilitation following ACL reconstruction. “It was real satisfying being able to come back and help the team. There were times when they were saying I couldn’t come back, but I just kept working at it. Just having that hope of coming back was great motivation.”
Brotherton has to be careful with Norman, who started at shortstop last season for the region champions. He will DH only for now and will come out for a pinch runner whenever necessary. Despite the limitations, Norman’s return has lit a fire under his teammates.
“He’s still recovering, so I don’t want him making sharp cuts and all that,” Brotherton said. “But his bat alone will help us tremendously. He can bunt, hit behind the runner or hit it out of the park. His teammates missed him because he was a key cog last year.”
With Norman in the lineup, the top half of the Dalton order is formidable. Senior Stryker Brown is batting close to .600, and Mitch Townsend, Trey Craig and cleanup hitter Blake Raber are each batting well over .300.
It’s a team, according to Norman, that can make a deep run in the upcoming playoffs.
“We just have to perform, which is something we didn’t do in the playoffs last year,” Norman said, referring to the team’s first-round upset loss last year. “I know if we’re playing our best ball, we can beat anyone.”