The Smoky Mountain baseball team.
SYLVA – Parker Williamson got almost all of one Saturday afternoon.
Almost.
The Smoky Mountain junior’s deep fly ball to right field needed just a little more oomph behind it or maybe the wind blowing out. Instead, a potential game-tying home run was caught by an East Rutherford outfielder in the bottom of the seventh inning. The Mustangs were eliminated in the fourth round of the NCHSAA 2-A baseball playoffs, 4-2.
Smoky Mountain (20-7) didn’t have a base hit through six innings before giving a late scare to one of the state’s top programs.
First-year Smoky Mountain coach Jeremy Ellenburg played on East Rutherford’s first NCHSAA championship team in 2002. But he was most proud of his current squad Saturday.
“What a great season,” Ellenburg said.
“You couldn’t have asked for more, especially out of our seniors. This group came ready to play every day. We faced a great pitcher (Cavaliers senior Ethan Stewart) today and he kept off balance. Our boys played hard, it just wasn’t our day.”
Stewart had a dozen strikeouts and East Rutherford (20-7) needed them all to offset a solid start from Smoky Mountain sophomore Zebby Matthews.
He gave up home runs to Stewart and Kendall Gowan, but otherwise held the visiting lineup mostly at bay. Matthews scattered three earned runs, five hits and one walk in 5.0 innings to along with five strikeouts.
Kevin Allred’s one-out double in the bottom of the seventh was the first hit that the Western North Carolina Athletic Conference champions could muster off of Stewart. Tristen Kenyon later had an RBI single and the sophomore was standing on second base when Williamson came up to bat.
“It was the Ethan Stewart show for us today. We rode his back,” Cavaliers coach Bobby Reynolds said.
“I thought Smoky Mountain’s kids really showed a lot in that last inning. That last at bat (by Williamson) was very competitive. The whole seventh inning was competitive.”
Smoky Mountain’s loss, coupled with Murphy’s 4-3 defeat at Cherryville, brings another season of WNC baseball to an end.
A team from the area has not won a public-school state championship since 2002, the longest drought for any sport sanctioned by the NCHSAA.
The Mustangs will lose three seniors to graduation —Allred, Jacob Gass and Jack Ridenour, All three were in the starting lineup Saturday.
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