Eagles Clinch Share of District Title

By: Lee Ramsey
lee@seymourherald.com
In only their second season in the tough IMAC Conference, the Seymour Eagles have clinched at least a share of the District AAA Championship title by defeating district rival Jefferson County 5-4 on the Patriots home field. Enrollment wise, Jefferson County is two times the size of Seymour.
The win improved Seymour’s record to 11-0 in the district and 20-6 overall.
The Eagles are no strangers to district championships as over the past 10 years, except for last year, they have won either a regular season or tournament 3-AA Championship each year.
They are now in District 2-AAA IMAC, which is the state’s largest classification. Before the season began Seymour Head Coach Scott Norman said, “It’s (AAA) a different world. I thought from a standpoint of stepping up into AAA we were very competitive (last season). This year we should be as good as anybody in the league.”
The Eagles are only one win away (with 3 games to go) from winning their district outright.
Tyler Crawford was the winning pitcher for the Eagles in a six hit effort.
Seymour collected 4 of their 9 hits from Chase Turner and Cody Fox while junior Ben Whisler and senior Logan Sawyer had 2 RBI’s each.
So far this season, the Eagles have enjoyed the best of both worlds as their strong pitching staff has allowed an average of only 2 runs per game and their hitters are averaging 9 runs per contest.
This undoubtedly is one of Coach Norman’s best regular season teams especially considering the competition. Seymour remains undefeated in the IMAC. It doesn’t get much better than that.
One day later, Seymour lost a non district game to Maryville at Seymour by a score of 11-10. Up 9-4 in the 7th inning, the game seemed all but over when disaster struck.
The Rebels hit 3 singles in a row off of Seymour pitcher Hunter Neff to load the bases. They then scored off an error keeping the bases loaded and making it 9-5.
Seymour pitcher Logan Jenkins relieved Neff and promptly hit a batter making it 9-6 and after a walk the score was 9-7. Things were tightening up.
Coach Norman then went to Chris McCarter in relief but he walked in another run making it 9-8. Another Eagle error scored the tying run for the Rebels and the bases were still loaded as the pressure really increased. It was as though everything was falling apart on cue.
Another Eagle error on a wild throw scored two more runs and the game was all but over as the Eagles only managed one more run. If Seymour can learn from this, it should help them on down the road. Every team has off days and in baseball it only takes one bad inning.