SILER CITY — It’s been nearly a month since Seaforth Principal Tripp Crayton threw the first pitch to kick off the school’s first baseball season on March 2.
Yet, even though it was 27 days late to the party, Jordan-Matthews made sure it didn’t miss the opportunity to give the Hawks a warm welcome to the neighborhood.
In the schools’ first-ever meeting on March 29 in Pittsboro, the Jets handed the Hawks a shutout loss, 7-0, after scoring three runs in the seventh inning to secure the comfortable win.
Seaforth had just four hits on the evening — including two from sophomore Dane O’Neill — as the Jets’ pitching staff pummeled them, striking out nine batters in the process.
Then, just three days later, a chance at redemption was on the line for the Hawks as the teams met for the rematch in Siler City.
But J-M wasn’t finished.
The Jets round-housed the Hawks, shutting them out in a 10-0 affair that lasted just five innings. In the bottom of the fifth, J-M anticlimactically walked it off on a dropped third strike, triggering the mercy rule and prematurely ending the contest.
The Hawks may have had the same number of runs scored as they did in the first matchup with the Jets, but they struggled mightily to even put themselves in a position to reach home plate.
In total, Seaforth mustered just three baserunners all night, which came on two hits and one walk.
Jets sophomore starting pitcher Ian McMillan, who threw all five innings, struck out four batters and appeared to be in control the whole way.
“We just wanted to throw strikes and put balls in play,” John Headen, the Jets’ head coach, said after the win, boiling down his team’s strategy. “(Ian got) a little bit (of work on the mound) last season, so there’s been some growth there.”
“He was literally the best pitcher we’ve faced all year,” Brian Ledford, Hawks’ assistant coach, claimed when discussing McMillan’s outing.
The team’s recent pitching depth has Headen breathing a sigh of relief.
“We’ve finally got kids that can go throw 80-90 pitches, 100 pitches, without being completely gassed,” Headen said of his promising pitching staff, McMillan included. “And most of them are not really sore the next day. So that’s good in comparison to where we had been. Sixty pitches used to be the max, they couldn’t hardly get past it, so them being able to show that they can go out and throw a game, get through a lineup three or four times, that’s a big deal for them.”
Up to this point, it’s been a fairly chaotic season for the Jets.
After starting the season 3-2 with a win over Hillside (1-6) and a sweep of Mid-Carolina 1A/2A conference foe Bartlett Yancey (4-6), the Jets lost four in a row before their dominant win over Seaforth last Tuesday.
Those four losses came at the hands of sweeps by two strong opponents: North Moore (7-1), one of the favorites to compete for the Mid-Carolina crown, and West Stokes (9-3), which has a pitching staff unlike any the Jets have seen up to this point as junior Jacob Smith and senior Mason Howell combined for 19 strikeouts between the two matchups.
In the Jets’ seven losses this season, their opponents have outscored them 69-12, a testament to the sheer strength of their competition.
“If we’re fortunate enough to make the playoffs, we’ll be prepared to play some of those teams, because those are 2A schools that will be in the playoffs,” Headen said, “so you’ve got to beat those guys if you want to do anything. I think they’ve grown from some of those games, too.”
Speaking of growth, Ledford said that, despite the game’s results, last Friday’s rematch with the Jets was one of the most impressive games he’s seen from his young squad.
“I know it didn’t come to fruition with runs, but the approach at the plate was, by far, the best game we’ve had all year,” Ledford said. “They were mentally into it.
“Their pitcher was probably throwing in the low 80s and they weren’t scared to death,” he added with a chuckle. “That’s a huge improvement. They were almost going up expecting to hit the ball, whereas, when we first played River Mill, if he’d have been throwing 80, they would have said, ‘Oh dear Lord, we’re screwed.’”
As is the case for all of Seaforth’s programs this season, the Hawks are made up of a youthful group of freshmen and sophomores — including just three that have played high school baseball before, all on junior varsity.
And to start the season, it showed.
Aside from two dominant wins over River Mill (2-10), including a 19-6 thrashing in the season-opener on March 2 and a 16-1 clobbering on March 14, the Hawks (3-8) have struggled against a majority of its opponents.
But Ledford claims that his team is swiftly improving — and it doesn’t take a lot to prove it.
“They started out as a really good J.V. baseball team, without the understanding of what it takes to be varsity athletes and compete against 17-18-year-old guys,” Ledford said. “And they’ve learned what the focus takes and what the mental preparation takes. … They’re making the small adjustments, they’re adapting to the game and adapting to the speed of the game.”
If the Hawks stay on this trajectory, Ledford said he has little doubt that this team can become one made up of “quite a few true varsity athletes.”
While the Jets and Hawks won’t meet again this season — barring a potential clash in the postseason — it’s safe to say that, in the future, the blowout wins one way or the other might be a thing of the past.
“They’re really young, they’re just getting started,” Headen said when asked about the Hawks’ season. “They’ve got a hard road to hoe, but they’ve gotten themselves some wins, too. Those guys are good ballplayers, they’re going to grow up and be fine.”
Reporter Victor Hensley can be reached at vhensley@chathamnr.com or on Twitter at @Frezeal33.