Diamond Cougars Advance to State

Going into yesterday, May 2, the Piedmont Academy baseball team knew it would be in the postseason.

The only question that remained centered on whether the Cougars would be a No. 3 seed or a No. 4 seed from Region 1-AA.

Piedmont and Gatewood finished the regular season tied and were set to play a tiebreaker contest Wednesday afternoon at John Milledge Academy.

Going into Tuesday, Piedmont, Gatewood and Covenant were battling for the final two spots. Monsignor Donovan’s 9-6 win Tuesday over Covenant helped put Piedmont and Gatewood in the postseason although the two teams had to determine final seeding with the tiebreaker game played at a neutral location.

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The Cougars will meet either Heritage or Christian Heritage in the opening round of state playoffs. Coach Danny Camp said he hoped to have the series pushed back a day to begin Saturday with a doubleheader and a third game, if necessary, Monday. State playoff matches are a best-of-three format.

Piedmont closed out its regular season Tuesday with a 16-1 win against John Hancock in three innings.

“I am so proud of our team,” Camp said. “At least we know we are in.”

Piedmont recorded a huge win in terms of advancing to the postseason with a 4-0 victory against Gatewood Friday at home.

The win improved the Cougars to 8-6 in Region 1-AA. Going into this week, Piedmont was still one of three teams battling for the final two playoffs spots from the region.

Brentwood and Windsor have locked up the top two seeds with Piedmont, Gatewood and Covenant battling for the other two.

In the victory against Gatewood, Cole Hamilton earned the win. The senior was well rested going into the contest, which contributed the decision to have him take the mound.

“We put the baseball in his hands,” Camp said. “Zach (Beggs) was ready as was McKenzie (Brittain.) Cole pitched lights out. We earned several 0-2 counts and started off quickly with two strikeouts in the first inning.”

Freshman Hunter Knox had a leadoff walk in the bottom of the first and advanced to second on a throw over from the pitcher to first base. Beggs then delivered an RBI double for an early 1-0 lead.

Hamilton then delivered a two-run homer for a 3-0 lead after the first.

“That set the tone for us,” Camp said. “We never looked back after that.”

Gatewood had chances to score, loading the bases in the fourth and seventh but they were unable to push any runs across.

Logan Partenza added an RBI single in the fifth inning which brought Josh Brennan home.

“We played excellent defense with Zach helping lead the way,” Camp said. “We started 1-4 in the region and finished 7-2 in the final nine games. It would have been easy for us to pack it in.”

Piedmont stepped out of region play Monday and Tuesday. The Cougars fell to Class AAA Loganville Christian 8-5 Monday. Camp used the contest to get several players more time on the pitcher’s mound including Beggs, Brittain, Luke Andrews and Glade Tuggle.

“We tried to spread things out since we have so many games this week,” Camp said. “We didn’t allow any walks so we did our job there. Loganville Christian is a good team. We took a lot from this game. It was better than just practicing.”

Piedmont fell behind 3-0 in Monday’s game but rallied to even the score. “We allowed some unearned runs as we were a little sloppy on defense,” Camp said.