VHS Warhawks make third straight Final Four

Maybe it’s because of experience, but this Veterans High baseball team is doing better in Atlanta lately than other team that plays there every day.

“The Braves are rebuilding,” said Warhawks head coach David Coffey. “We’re senior heavy.”

Because of four wins out of five road games in the last two rounds of the GHSA Class 4A playoffs, the Veterans Warhawks are in the Final Four for the third year in a row. Veterans took a highly ranked and highly storied Marist program to three games on its home field in the first week of May and squeaked by in Game 3 2-1. That was the second round, or the ‘Sweet 16.’ Though things are supposed to get harder as one moves forward in the playoffs, the Warhawks rolled to a sweep of Woodward Academy – playing in College Park – Tuesday 9-0 and 10-7.

On Monday, as the No. 2 seed from Region 2-AAAA, Veterans will head north again but stop short of the metro area in Henry County. The Warhawks face Locust Grove High – No. 2 in the Maxpreps 4A rankings and region winners – in a best of 3 to decide who plays for the 2016 championship.

Locust Grove needed three games to eliminate Heritage-Catoosa at home this past week.

“Us drawing (Marist) and them drawing us, I think we probably both said the same thing about each other,” said Coffey. “‘Really. We have them in the second round?’ Us being able to get past Marist was a big deal. Us getting past Woodward was a big deal. Now we face a great quality team in Locust Grove.

“I know their pitching staff is outstanding and they have a few great hitters.

“I think the key to our success is our pitchers are throwing strikes, our defense is making the routine play and our hitters are getting timely hits. That’s what baseball comes down to, doing the small things. Right now we are doing the small things.”

For the playoffs, Coffey’s gone with a pitching rotation featuring throwers who have overcome the career threatening injury. It’s been Andrew Ellison who’s earned the Game 1 assignments in all three rounds so far and, and all three are Veterans victories. Against Woodward Academy, he was the story with a complete-game three-hit shutout.

Kyle Parry is 3-0 in the postseason. Against Woodward he went five innings allowing both runs.

“Even before we started (the season) we had some injuries,” said Coffey. “Tip your hat to the guys. They’ve persevered, worked hard. So far, so good.

“(Ellison) missed his entire junior year. The work ethic he has, the work he put in just to get back to maybe having the opportunity to pitch his senior year says a lot about him. He’s done a lot more than just pitch. He’s one of the best guys we have, and that’s why he goes out there for Game 1.

“Early in the season he was on a pitch count. He’s still on a pitch count, but it’s not the same as it was in February. He feels good and we feel good about him.

“Kyle brings tenacity, a hard-nosed attitude, a get down and dirty with the team kind of thing. I admire that. He’s not afraid to challenge somebody. He’ll throw any pitch in any count. He has faith in all of his pitches.”

With the exception of two games at Marist, the Warhawk lineup is scoring runs in the playoffs. The bats went to work on Woodward pitching getting extra-base hits from six players in the Game 1 win. Three of them – Leyton Pinckney, Derek Wylie and Tyler Daughtery – hit home runs in Game 2. Veterans led in that game 10-2 going into the seventh inning, but four errors led to five unearned runs for Woodward.

Pinckney and Gabe Holt – the leadoff hitter – went deep in the Game 1 win at Marist. It’s a lineup that starts with Holt and goes all the way down to first baseman Korbin Hollensteiner, who is hitting .500.

“It’s bad when you go 2-for-4 and your average goes down,” Coffey joked on the ride to Marist. “From top to bottom we are starting to swing the bat and string hits together. That’s something early in the year we didn’t do … we would have 10 or 12 in the game. At Marist and Woodward, we would come out of the gate and have three or four straight hits.”

In Veterans’ previous Final Four appearances, the games were at home against Carrollton and Whitewater. But the Warhawk program has never lost a road playoff series, so maybe, as Coffey said, the third time is the charm.

“I’d like to think we’re very experienced,” he said. “We know the atmosphere. The only real uncertainty is what Locust Grove has other than a great record and great team. We have to execute what we do, and if we do let the chips fall where they may.”

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