Druid Hills shortstop Max Fishbein makes a play in a first round game against Northwest Whitfield. (Photo by Mark Brock)
Class 4A – Druid Hills season ends (Added 5/6/21)
The Druid Hills Red Devils had their big season come to an end in the second round of the Class 4A state playoffs with two losses to North Oconee on Wednesday night.
Rain delayed the series from Monday and the Red Devils came to play battling one of the top teams in the state before falling 2-0 in the opener of the best-of-three series.
The second game was a tough 17-1 loss to close out the season. Druid Hills finishes up at 18-10 on the year. The Red Devils defeated Northwest Whitfield two games to one in the first round to win their first playoff series since a 2-1 series win over Central of Carrollton in 2001. Eric Love’s squads’ 18 wins was the most since that 2004 team went 21-7 under the guidance of Don Burgess and the sixth most in school history.
Lakeside’s Zaylan Washington (left) gets a fist bump from Coach Brian Granger after his towering home run into the trees in the second inning of the Vikings playoff loss to Lee County. (Photo by Mark Brock)
LAKESIDE, DUNWOODY FALL IN MUST WIN GAMES
Needing to win the deciding third game of their respective high school baseball playoff series, the Lakeside Vikings and Dunwoody Wildcats fell to their opponents to close out their 2021 seasons.
Lakeside (25-5) opened the day tied at 1-1 in its best-of-three first round Class 6A playoff series with Lee County (11-21) only to have the Trojans score four first inning runs and the Vikings could never catch up in the 11-4 loss.
Lee County had won the opener 9-5 and Lakeside rallied to even the series with an 8-1 victory in the nightcap.
Smith Pinson and Luke Addison drove in runs first for Lee County followed by a two-out, two-run double by Luke Powell to make it 4-0 early.
Zaylan Washington led off the bottom of the second with a solo homerun to give Lakeside a lift and trim the lead to 4-1 heading into the top of the third inning.
Powell struck again with two one and one with a double down the left field line to drive in two runs. Gavin Lacey followed with a two-run single just two batters later and Lee County took a 9-1 lead.
Lakeside picked up a run in the bottom of the third on a double steal with Will Thomas scoring. The Vikings final run came on a RBI single by Lucas Uyeda in the bottom of the fourth.
Lee County added single runs in the top of the fourth and the top of the sixth.
Lakeside finishes the season with a team record 25 wins.
Dunwoody’s Nathan Pettitt (4) heads to first base on a hit into left field during the Wildcats’ playoff loss to South Forsyth. (Photo by Mark Brock)
Class 7A
The Dunwoody Wildcats season came to an end in the first round of the Class 7A state playoffs with an 9-0 loss in the recent must-win, third game of their best-of-three series against South Forsyth.
Dunwoody opened the series with a convincing 7-1 victory only to have South Forsyth bounce back to even the series in the nightcap with an 11-5 victory.
Back-to-back errors to open the deciding third game resulted in South Forsyth taking the early 1-0 lead.
Another error in the top of the second opened the door for a big inning for South Forsyth. Following the error that allowed two runs to score, Jacob Bateman’s infield single scored a third. Gehrig Frei then homered to deep right to drive in two more runs. Ryan Becker followed Frei with a line drive homer to left center for two more runs pushing the lead to 8-0.
The Wildcats could never get anything going against South Forsyth starter Brendan Clemente managing just four hits (all singles) in the game. Dunwoody only got two runners to second base in the seven innings as well.
Dunwoody finishes 19-12 on the season and the runner-up in Region 7-7A.