Putnam County’s baseball season came to an early end last week, as the team dropped a pair of one-run games to Jeff Davis in the first round of GHSA Class A Division I state playoffs.
There wasn’t much separating the two teams all series — just a couple of plays here and there.
In Game 1, the War Eagles came up short in an 8-7 loss. They spent most of the night trying to climb out of an early hole after a few defensive mistakes gave Jeff Davis momentum.
“They really made the routine plays and just made you beat them,” Putnam County head coach Stephen Phillips said. “We knew the gap for mistakes was going to be small, and unfortunately for us, we made some mistakes in Game 1 that put us behind.”
Putnam County did manage to battle back and get within a run late in the game, but just couldn’t find the equalizer before running out of outs.
Phillips pointed to those early mistakes as a turning point, and not just because they happened, but because they stacked up.
“Just defensive mistakes,” he said. “The pressure of the playoffs; it’s win or go home. We’d make a mistake and then make another one, and then you spend a lot of time trying to put fires out. Unfortunately, we surrendered the lead and had to spend a lot of time trying to catch back up.”
Game 2 may have been even tougher to swallow.
Behind a dominant outing from Gage Lanzarone, who carried a one-hitter into the seventh inning, Putnam County was in position to force a Game 3. But in the bottom of the seventh, Jeff Davis took advantage of a late error to walk it off and end the series.
Even with the 4-3 result, there remained bright spots for the Putnam team.
Ethan Whatley turned in a strong series, producing at the plate and contributing on the mound, continuing the all-around play that made him a key piece all year.
“Ethan has been a huge part of our success this year, at the plate, on the mound, defensively,” Phillips said. “He’s a young man who’s done a lot of growing up over the last year, and he’s going to get a chance now to play at the next level.”
Lanzarone’s performance in Game 2 stood out as well, especially considering the stakes. In the end, however, the difference in the series came down to execution. Jeff Davis made the routine plays, while Putnam County, at a couple of key moments, didn’t.
And that was enough to determine the result: two games, two one-run losses, and a season that ended with the feeling that more was within reach.
However, as Phillips pointed out, “Jeff Davis is a program that’s established and has a winning tradition. We knew coming in it was going to be a tough matchup.”