Not much down time with summer baseball

Published 9:38 pm Friday, June 27, 2008

The high school baseball season ended a month ago and school has been out for weeks, but area programs still managed to get in some valuable playing time in summer play, participating in tournaments such as the Wood Bat Classic, Battlefield Classic, Southern Classic and the Dizzy Dean tournament.

The championship game for the Dizzy Dean tournament tonight at 6 p.m. at Murray County will conclude summer play, as the Georgia High School Association will implement its statewide “dead week” starting Sunday, which effectively shuts down all prep sports-related activities.

While the regular season is geared solely toward competing and advancing to the postseason, summer ball provides different opportunities and agendas for each program, whether it be trying a player at a new position or giving a seldom used player a chance to prove himself.

The challenge with summer ball is balancing the urge to win and allowing players to gain valuable experience.

“There are two ways to look at it,” Dalton High summer league coach Brad Dunn said. “You always want to win, but there is a fine line between working on one thing and sacrificing something else. These tournaments cost money to enter so we’ll play to win. The players work on individual things and that can still be worked into the competing aspect. Every kid on the field enjoys winning. There is nothing fun about losing and going home.”

Dunn, a long-time assistant with the Catamounts, takes over coaching duties for Bobby Brotherton, who heads to Virginia every summer to coach the Front Royal Cardinals of the NCAA sanctioned Valley League.

Dunn has been tinkering with the lineup to develop possible pitching candidates and establish utility players for next season.

“We’re trying out Blake Raber (who last season served as a back-up third baseman, outfielder and catcher) at pitching and he’s doing well,” Dunn said. “We’ll have some new kids in the outfield, as well as a new shortstop. We’re putting these kids all over the place. We’ll have one kid play catcher so that Garren (Palmer) can get some time at first base. We can move Garren back behind the plate and put someone else at first. Nothing is written in stone. That’s what summer (ball) is all about.”

Along with the lineup adjustments, Dunn is seeing good results on the field.

The Catamounts won the Wood Bat and Battlefield classics, scoring at least 11 runs a game in the latter tournament.

Also enjoying success this summer are the Murray County Indians, who according to coach Jason Lanham, own a 20-4 record in varsity play heading into tonight’s Dizzy Dean championship game.

Next season, the Indians will return to Region 7-4A after spending two years in Region 5-5A. Though Murray County has had losing records in each of the past two seasons, Lanham can sense the team gaining momentum.

“We’re super excited to be back in Region 7-4A,” Lanham said. “Being up there in Region 5 was good for the kids because it gave them a chance to see that high level of play. I think it’s to our advantage that we played teams like North Cobb, McEachern and Harrison because that made us take our game to another level. The success we’ve had this summer is giving us big expectations heading into next season. I think we’re definitely starting to turn a corner.”

Also dropping down in classification is Southeast, which will play in Region 6-3A next season after spending eight years in Region 7-4A.

This summer, Raiders coach Jason Keller decided to give members of his coaching staff more experience, allowing them to run the varsity and junior varsity squads while he coached the middle school team.

“My staff (Todd Murray and brothers Austin and Craig Brock) is getting some good coaching experience,” he said. “They’re making decisions they normally wouldn’t make and it gives me an opportunity to step away to build a foundation with our middle school kids. It’s important for them to know what to expect when they get to the high school level.”

Northwest Whitfield is looking to rebound from a 10-16 record after going 20-10 in 2007 and winning the region.

Despite the sub-par 2008 season, Bruins coach Todd Middleton is looking forward to next year.

“I don’t know what you would call last season,” Middleton said. “We played a lot of young guys who now have a lot of varsity experience. This summer, I think we have some guys that played well and showed where they need to be as far as the lineup goes. Everyone had their moments.”