Warner Robins baseball run rules Northside in Part 2 of the Crosstown Showdown behind Kameron Lester’s no-hitter

WARNER ROBINS — The Warner Robins Demons (1-2) paid the Northside Eagles (3-2) back for their walk-off loss last week and then some with a 12-0 run rule in five innings on Friday for Part 2 of the Crosstown Showdown.

Senior Kameron Lester threw 8 strikeouts in a no-hitter in his final game against Northside.

Three observations:

Bonus: Kameron Lester makes last game against Northside a memorable one

There’s a lot of ways to make the last game against your rival special, and a no-hitter is certainly one of them.

Kameron Lester threw all five innings for the Demons on Friday and dished out 8 strikeouts and only one walk.

Northside was desperate for contact, especially after the third inning, but Lester rarely gave them much they could get ahold of.

The few balls the Eagles managed to make contact with, the outfield took care of despite not getting much action for most of the night.

Play like you care

Last week, to Jeremy Avery, the reason Warner Robins lost is because they didn’t play like they cared.

They led the whole way, but gave up the game in the bottom of the seventh.

This time they took care of the routine plays and didn’t allow Northside any success.

“They played like they cared,” Avery said. “Last week they just went through the motions, and tonight they cared and they did the simple little things and you see what happens. They’re good when they play. The problem is in today’s world they’re all worried about phones and what everybody thinks instead of just getting out there and doing what you can do.”

Philosophy at the plate

Northside walked 12 batters, so Warner Robins had plenty of time on the bases.

Because of how wild some of the Eagles’ pitches were, there wasn’t much for the Demons to hit. In fact, they only had one from Drew White in the bottom of the third.

But some of that was by design. Avery thought they were too liberal with what pitches they swung at last week, and told the Demons to reign it in.

“I told them to take,” Avery said. “Once they started getting wild, I’m like we’re gonna make them throw strikes because we hurt ourselves last week. We swung at a lot of bad pitches, so I basically took the bat out of their hands and said, until we get a strike, we’re just gonna take. A lot of times he never threw one, so he was walking them a lot.”

Preparing for the cold

The temperature was in the 30s for most of the game, and players, coaches and fans wore an assortment of hoodies, beanies, blankets and anything else to keep them warm.

That includes the outfield, who did a lot of standing around considering how few balls made it out there way.

However, there was still a couple of plays they had to make that were important in keeping the Eagles off of the bases, and to preserve Lester’s no-hitter.

Avery prepared his players for that in practice the day before, also in the cold.

“We practiced yesterday where a lot of people took the time off or stayed in the [batting] cage. We went out in the cold yesterday and hit fly balls,” Avery said. “It was really windy yesterday, so it was harder to catch fly balls yesterday than it was today.”

“I try to make practice harder than the game, and then that way when you get in the game, the game should be easy,” he added. “We made some adjustments of where we positioned them in the outfield to make it easier. It’s easier to run forward than it is to run backwards. Last week we played a little too shallow and they kept having to run backwards. Tonight they were running forwards. That guy hit the ball really hard in the first inning, but he hit it right to the [outfielder]. We had him positioned right.”

UP NEXT

Northside will host Dolly County on Monday, Feb. 24 at 5 p.m.

Warner Robins will head up the road to Central Fellowship Christian Academy on Monday, Feb. 24 at 4 p.m.