Central plays spoiler, eliminates Smiths Smiths Station

The same two teams as last year played in this year’s regular season finale between Central and Smiths Station on Thursday. They were just sitting in different dugouts.

This time around, the Red Devils are the ones hitting their stride at the right time, finding a strength in their arms and getting timely hits at the plate. Meanwhile, the Panthers, winners of the 2015 Class 7A state championship, were the ones holding a prolonged meeting in the outfield grass after the game, heads buried in their hands.

Central finished off Smiths Station 7-2 Thursday night, prematurely ending the Panthers hopes of defending their title. The loss dropped them to 1-3 in Area 3-7A play, a tie with Auburn, which captured the tiebreaker by winning Game 3 between the two teams.

The Panthers’ coaches had a lengthy talk with its seniors after the game, sharing hugs with each one before they walked off the field.

“It’s a horrible feeling right now,” Panthers coach Mike Ferry said. “But these seniors are going to be remembered for what they accomplished, not for this day.”

They accomplished quite a bit, making two straight impressive late-season runs in 2014 and 2015, the latter of which culminated in the program’s first ever state championship. They won 108 games over the course of their four years at the school.

On Thursday, though, that was far from most of the players’ minds.

“Baseball is a brutal sport,” Ferry said. “It gives you the highest of highs, and it gives you the lowest of lows. We’ve had the highest highs. Right now just wasn’t our time.”

Instead, it may be Central’s. While Central coach Bobby Howard has had enough experience with state championship contention to get too far ahead of himself, Ferry pointed out the obvious after the game.

“Central is playing a lot like what we did to end last year,” he said. “They’ve been playing some of their best ball of the season.”

The Red Devils capped off a perfect area record with the two-game sweep of the Panthers. They lost once to Auburn in the third game of their three-game series, but that counts only as a tiebreaker, not in the area standings.

On Thursday, it was another stingy performance on the rubber that helped the Red Devils earn their 24th victory of the season. Tanner Belcher pitched a complete game, allowing six hits and striking five over the course of seven innings. He gave up two runs, one of which was unearned.

While the Central defense didn’t do him a lot of favors, committing five errors on the day, the pitcher was able to wiggle out of trouble time and time again. Belcher set down the first six batters and got through three innings only facing the minimum. His first trouble came in the bottom of the fifth after a one-out single by Jerry Dale Bowman came home to roost. Trent Hollingsworth followed with another single and Garrett Barr knocked an RBI infield single to cut the Central lead, at the time, to 5-1.

In the sixth, the Red Devils committed three errors that allowed Devin Brown to score the Panthers’ second run. They left the bases loaded, however, and never had another chance to score.

“The reason we’re advancing is our arms,” Howard said. “We made too many errors today and that’s been our Achilles’ heel, but our pitcher just pitched around them today.

“Yeah, I just had to pitch out of it,” Belcher said. “As a whole, our team just has to stay together in those situations.”

Central scored two runs in the first inning when Slade Gorman and Evan Baber led off the game with walks and came around to cross the plate. Gorman knocked a solo home run to left field in the third, and Gage Dollar had a two-RBI single in the fourth.

Now Central turns its attention forward, where it will meet Prattville in the opening round of the playoffs next week.

“We’re playing the best ball we’ve played all year,” Belcher said. “But I feel like we’ve got a lot more in store. I feel like we’re going to keep getting better from this time on.”

This story was originally published April 21, 2016 at 9:14 PM with the headline "Central plays spoiler, eliminates Smiths Smiths Station."