It isn’t very often Travis Hart gets to play the underdog card, but when the McMinn Central baseball coach gets a chance, he works it for all it’s worth. So after his Chargers pulled off a 3-1 upset at Red Bank in a Region 3-AA win-or-go-home game Monday night, the veteran coach was grinning like a Cheshire cat.
McMinn Central (19-15) will visit Polk County in the region final Wednesday in a rematch of the District 5 championship game.
“I believed we shocked some people tonight,” Hart said moments after fulfilling a promise to his team by doing a bellyflop slide onto the outfield grass. “I’ve said it all year: Nobody respected this team after we lost so many from last year. I played that up all week.
“The guys responded, and if people didn’t already know who Scott Moses is, they do now. We rode his back all year long, and we rode it tonight.”
Moses, one of two returning starters for the Englewood school, limited the Lions to four hits while striking out 10 in improving his season pitching record to 8-0. He also had three of the Chargers’ seven hits and scored two runs. He began the game with a double and scored two batters later on Judah Ward’s single to right field.
The McMinn Central defense also made a difference. In the bottom of the first, right fielder Bradley Ward made a nice running grab toward the line on a one-out fly ball from Hunter Holmes and threw out speedy leadoff man T.J. Butts at home.
The Red Bank defense was spotty, especially in the third inning when three errors led to two unearned runs and a 3-0 Chargers lead.
Moses, who was physically ill before the game, had one tough inning, the fourth. A one-out double by Taylor Martin, a walk and Bryan Burnette’s single plated one run, and when Moses hit No. 9 batter Donovan Hargis, Butts came up with the bases loaded and two out.
Moses, though, got Butts to ground out to second, and Red Bank got only one runner past first base the rest of the way.
“It was a great team win,” Moses said. “I told the guys if they could get me a couple of runs, we could win it. I wasn’t feeling real good coming in, but I’m feeling pretty good right now. I think we surprised them. Replacing those nine seniors wasn’t easy, but we all stepped up big today.”