Braves beat Bulldogs in baseball season opener

Published 12:53 pm Wednesday, February 12, 2025

The first pitch of high school baseball season in Milledgeville happened Monday.

Fittingly it was two local teams facing one another as GMC Prep hosted Baldwin High on Craig Field. In a game that featured plenty of errors and miscues by both teams, the Braves played a cleaner ballgame and trailed only half an inning on their way to an 8-3 win.

“We’ve still got a long way to go,” Baldwin head coach Rico Gibson said. “We made a lot of mistakes that are going to hurt us when we get into region play. We’ve got a lot of growing to do.”

That includes when the Braves have the bats in their hands. They out-hit the Bulldogs 7-5, but also struck out 17 times against GMC junior pitchers Ayden Hamm and Noah Goddard. BHS senior catcher Rickey Jenks had the best night at the plate, going 3-for-3 with a double and two RBI.

The Bulldog lefty Hamm set the strikeout tone early when he sat down the side with three punchouts (two looking, one swinging) in the top of the first. Then in the home team’s turn to bat, junior infielder Eli Griffith hit a one-out single past second base to get things started. He stole both second and third and came home when a slow roller to third resulted in a wild throw over to first. GMC held a 1-0 advantage after one complete.

Baldwin wasted no time in providing an answer. Jenks led off the top of the second and yanked a double down the left-field line. Up next was senior Tyler Baugh, whose single into right tied the game up at one run apiece. The GMC starter Hamm then found his footing and again struck out three consecutive batters to hold the score at 1-1.

The tally stayed that way until the top of the third when the first three Braves batters reached thanks to a walk, hit batter, and a single. Jenks again came through with a bloop single to right. The runner at third held to make sure the ball dropped in safely, so there was a play at the plate. The Baldwin baserunner won the race to give the visitors their first lead at 2-1, and the gap widened from there. With two outs and runners on second and third, a grounder to third was fielded cleanly, but the throw one-hopped over to first and wasn’t handled. That allowed two more runs to cross, making it 4-1 BHS in one of the turning points of the game.

Mistakes continued piling up for the Bulldogs in the bottom of the fourth when two batters missed hit-and-run signs from head coach Kyle Redmond. Runners in both instances were cut down as they were left hung out to dry.

Both teams added a run apiece in the fifth and sixth frames, so Baldwin’s three-run lead remained intact at 6-3 heading into the seventh and final inning. Goddard had come on in relief of Hamm, who pitched five innings of four-hit ball with 12 Ks and only three earned runs allowed. The righty reliever Goddard faced a bases-loaded situation with one out. A wild pitch got away from the catcher enough to let one run score. Goddard then sat the batter down for the second out, but that exact sequence – wild pitch, run scored, followed by a strikeout – repeated itself before the inning was up to push Baldwin’s lead to 8-3.

The Bulldogs had one more chance to tie or win in the bottom of the seventh, but they didn’t do much with it. Junior Eli Moreno had come on in relief of Braves senior starter Caden Thigpen in the sixth. Moreno struck out the side in the seventh, working around a hit batsman with two outs to close out his team’s season-opening victory.

Baldwin head coach Gibson is working with a lot of seniors in his starting lineup, but some are transfers into the program while others are seeing their first significant playing time. He believes that once they get their experience up, at least making the state playoffs is a realistic goal for this year’s Braves team.

GMC is coming off its own bout of having a young, inexperienced team in 2024. Coach Redmond is hoping to get things clicking with this year’s junior-heavy squad.

Both local teams are back in action Monday. Baldwin will hit the road to Wilkinson County while the Bulldogs will go to Jasper County.