Mounties coach: team overachieved
Posted on Tuesday, May 13, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/brog/Sports/60209/
ROGERS Not even a loss in the quarterfinals of the Class 7 A State Baseball Tournament will smug the luster off the Rogers Mounties baseball season, their 18-year head coach said Monday.
The best description of this team is overachieving, Rogers coach Dr. Tom Woodruff said, taking a break from collecting uniforms. Do you realize that weve taken two No. 1 teams, at different times during the season, one to extra innings and the other to the bottom of the last inning ?
You know, that just shows you we were by golly in every game.
The 7 A-Central champion Little Rock Catholic Rockets got big hits in the bottom of the seventh Saturday to beat Rogers 4-3 after the Mounties had tied the game at 3.
The other top team Rogers took to extra innings was Fayetteville, which was the only team to sweep both ends of a doubleheader from the Mounties this season.
There was only one game we got beat (bad ), he recalled, wrapping up the season. Fort Smith Southside sent Rogers soul-searching in the blue metal woodshed at Northwest Park after a 9-0 victory in the first game of a doubleheader. Rogers answered with a 9-7 win in Game 2.
Outside of that one game, it wasnt over until the fat lady sang, Woodruff said. Thats a credit to the players.
Rogers (15-10, 9-5 ) finished in a tie for third in the 7 A-West. It opened the state tournament behind McKen- home run to beat Pine Bluff 6-2 on Friday.
A victory against Catholic on Saturday would have put the Mounties in the state semifinals for the third time since high school baseball resumed and the first time since 1999.
Aside from the Southside loss, its next greatest Class 7 A loss was by four runs at Van Buren.
It won one conference game by a single run, four games by two runs and once by three. Its most lopsided league victory was six, 10-4, of Game 2 against Bentonville.
Woodruff said his team had no appreciable experience entering the season.
You didnt know what they were going to do, he said of his team. I know one thing. We worked hard with the pitchers last fall getting the ball down low.
They bought into that. They worked hard on defense because we knew that we were going to give up some hits. But wed give up those ground balls and fly balls as long as it took.
The team will hold its banquet 6: 30 p. m. Wednesday, May 21, when player honors are announced.
Some players off this team are headed or seem to be headed to the college level. Seth White signed with Arkansas Tech before the season started. Hendrix College has expressed interest to Woodruff about talking to shortstop Grant Wise and to pitcher Harrison Stanfill. Crowder College is believed to be interested in Wise, as well.