Tiger baseball team takes first two in Jacksonville

By Dusty Harper (Contact) | Alex City Outlook

Published Tuesday, June 9, 2009

The Dadeville Tigers began summer baseball action with a pair of wins Tuesday in Jacksonville.

Dadeville took down the Westbrook Christian Warriors 8-0 and followed that with a 6-5 win against the Crossville Lions. Westbrook is a 2A school in Rainbow City, while Crossville competes in Class 3A.

Head coach Randy Nolen was pleased for the most part with his team’s effort.

“Well, we were a little rusty, but we had a pretty good day,” Nolen said. “We made a few too many baserunning mistakes and our hitting needs a little work, but we played pretty good defense and pitched well, so that was good to see.”

The Tigers will face Weaver and Walter Wellborn, a Class 3A playoff team last season, today.

Though some coaches take a more laid back approach to summer baseball, Nolen wants his players to treat the game as close to a regular season game as possible.

“We definitely don’t want to keep it lax,” Nolen said. “We want to get better. The younger kids need to see what their expectations are. We get to play some guys in different spots and that type of thing, but we there to get better.”

The long-time coach did acknowledge that maintaining a gameday atmosphere is tougher with the heat.

“When it’s 96 degrees and you’ve you just played a game, it’s not always easy to keep the intensity up,” he said.

Jody Kelly threw three innings for Dadeville in the Westbrook victory. Cameron Carleton and Quinn Harrelson, both honorable mentions to the ASWA All-State team, tossed an inning each.

In the second game, Andrew Padgett started and went three frames, and Jacob Tidwell and Kyle Caldwell finished off the game.

Nolen said a few of the younger guys caught his eye.

“I thought our young guys came out and looked pretty good,” Nolen said. “Hagan McBride had a hit, Padgett was good, and Brandon Gurubel hit for us. We expect (the younger players) to step up.”

After their two games today, the Tigers will finish the tournament Thursday.

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