Talk about David and Goliath.
Soddy-Daisy went into the District 5-AAA baseball tournament as the seventh seed, having lost four of its last five regular-season games, and sporting an unimpressive 6-19 record.
However, the Trojans caught fire in the tournament, beating the second-, third-, and fourth-seeded teams – Walker Valley, Bradley Central and Cleveland – and came out as the district’s runner-up and second-seed for the Region 3-AAA tournament.
Conversely, Cookeville dominated District 6-AAA by winning all 12 league games. The Cavaliers lost once during the regular season, dropping a 5-3 decision to Sevier County on April 6. They tied Collierville, 3-3, on April 18.
They won 12 straight games, a streak that included the district tourney title with a 9-2 win over Coffee County, after winning 15 in a row to open the season.
Cookeville enters the postseason’s second phase with the state’s best record at 32-1-1. The 32 wins is a school record.
So, Soddy-Daisy – David – takes on Cookeville – Goliath – on Monday in the Region 3-AAA semifinals at Cookeville High School. The first pitch is scheduled for 7 p.m. Eastern time.
The Trojans (11-22) better find a stout sling-shot and several sharp-edged stones.
“Absolutely,” Soddy-Daisy coach Jared Hensley said when asked if his Trojans are facing their stiffest challenge of the season.
Why?
“They were in our tournament (the Trojan Classic) and we saw them play East Hamilton at our place,” Hensley said. “They are extremely fast and athletic. They’re always well-coached. (Coach Brent) Chaffin always does a great job as far as the game goes, coaching them to play hard. We know they’re going to be tough.
“It’s a big game for my guys because of what’s at stake and the fact that it’s a region semifinal game. The loser goes home.”
It’s a “big game” for the Cavaliers as well.
Cookeville has lost in the region semifinals in each of the last three seasons.
“The last few years, we haven’t won that one, but we set out to do differently,” the Cavaliers’ Jeffrey Riedel was quoted as saying in the Cookeville Herald-Citizen after the district championship game on Thursday. “We want to win that game and move on farther past that. It’s gonna be a big game and it will be hard competition, but we can do it.”
Riedel went 3-for-4 with two home runs, a double and four RBIs in the title game.
As recently as 2011, Soddy-Daisy was a region champion, a sectional kingpin, finished fifth in the state tournament and had a 27-14 record. The year before, the Trojans went 30-7, won the district tournament, finished second in the regional and lost to Columbia, 10-9, in the last inning after blowing a 9-6 lead in the sectional.
The Trojans were 18-17 in 2012, losing in the district tournament.
Hensley was a mere week into the 2013 season when he called his staff in for a meeting to determine a way to keep the season from completely slipping away.
The Trojans opened the season with four consecutive losses to district foes Ooltewah and Bradley Central by a combined score of 42-11.
“Before we started, I was looking at it on paper and what we had coming back and knew that experience would be a key to some early-season struggles,” Hensley said. “We had to step back and evaluate where we were and where we needed to go.
“A week into the season we met as a staff and talked about getting back to the basics. Sometimes you assume things and get comfortable and that’s when you might slip up, no matter what you’re doing. I don’t think we hit a fungo for a week. We did nothing but work on basic baseball.”
While the results continued to bury the Trojans deep in the district cellar, the coaches and players continued to have a positive attitude and the confidence that the season could be salvaged.
“It wasn’t a quick turnaround,” Hensley said. “I thought after a couple weeks we would start to click. We showed signs, but we just didn’t know how to finish games. We lost 11 games in the fifth inning or later, nine in the sixth or later and five in walk-off style.
“We had our hearts broken.”
The turnaround came after a lethargic Monday practice before the tournament started on Wednesday.
Hensley didn’t like his players’ approach to that particular practice session.
No way.
“I didn’t like the way they were carrying themselves,” said Hensley, who is 105-63 in five seasons at Soddy-Daisy. “I got pretty upset with them and they ran quite a bit after practice. I told them I had expected them to have grown up by now. I told them we had three days to grow up (the Trojans didn’t play until Thursday), come together as a team and figure out how to win.”
The Trojans, who have one senior, five juniors, eight sophomores and seven freshmen on a 21-player roster, outscored their higher-seeded opponents, 30-10, and lost to the top-seeded, 3-1, in the game for the No. 1 spot for the region in the rain-shortened district tournament.
Soddy-Daisy whacked Cleveland, 10-1, to secure the No. 2 spot.
Now, the Trojans have to dig deep to maintain the postseason momentum gained from the district tourney against one of the state’s top Class AAA teams.
Cookeville’s 32 wins eclipse the previous school record of 31 set in 1981 when the Cavaliers went 31-3 when Chaffin was a senior.
Chaffin did not return a phone message left on his cell phone seeking comment on this story.
The Trojans’ top three hitters are junior Caden Ricketts (.396), sophomore Levi Thornton (.342) and junior Christian Amos (.337).
Ricketts has three home runs, 31 RBIs and a .496 on-base percentage, all three team-leading numbers. Amos drove in 21 runs.
Amos and freshman Gavin Rogers, a freshman, lead the Trojans with three pitching wins each. Sophomore Hunter Maynor has won twice and has a 3.88 ERA.
(E-mail Larry Fleming at larryfleming44@gmail.com)