Trojans fall to Frederica after series goes the distance

Published 2:44 pm Tuesday, May 27, 2025

The state semifinalist John Milledge Academy baseball team used up all of its offense in Game 1 of the best-of-three series at Frederica Academy over the weekend.

The fourth-seeded Trojans bashed 18 hits and won the opener 13-3 over the No. 1 Knights Friday. The JMA bats got progressively cooler Saturday as Frederica won Game 2 3-2 then the clincher 4-0 to advance to the GIAA Class AAA championship versus Pinewood in Columbus this weekend.

A 23-10 record and a trip to the semis was how the season ended for a John Milledge club that replaced its head coach midseason. Justin Mills took over for the forced-to-resign Chad Starley back in mid-March. The group of six seniors was trying for its third state title in four years.

“It’s a really mature group of seniors,” Mills said. “They don’t really get rattled much at all. Those guys are real tight. They’ve been through a lot of stuff and have formed a bond that’s fun to watch. They compete well together and encourage each other. At the end of the day, we’d obviously love to be getting sized for rings, but we had a lot of fun and I think that’s how they felt as well.”

Game 1 was definitely fun for the visitors down on St. Simons Island Friday. The Trojans scored in five of seven innings and almost everyone had multi-hit games on their way to the 13-run tally. Seniors Will Adams and Kolt McMichael along with junior Graysen Paradise homered in that one. When JMA wasn’t going yard, the hitters were testing the Knights’ bunt defense with good success. Senior Ayden Whidby threw six innings and struck out seven while giving up just a pair of runs.

“Everybody contributed in a pretty big way in that first game,” said Mills. “We did a really good job with the bats Friday. Then Saturday was just a completely different day.”

Batting as the away team, Frederica put up a couple of runs to open Game 2, and the Trojans waited until the fifth to even the score at 2-2. The Knights got the lead right back in the sixth at 3-2, but they weren’t out of the woods. Thanks to a walk and single, John Milledge put runners on first and second with two outs in the seventh. Coming to the plate was senior Remington Weaver, who had been a doubles machine during the postseason. A groundball out to second was the result though, so Frederica took Game 2 to even up the series 1-1.

Mills had thrown his ace McMichael in the second game, so the rubber match belonged to Weaver on the mound. The winner-take-all contest sat scoreless until the bottom of the fifth when Frederica cracked the scoreboard with a couple of runs. The top-seeded Knights plated two more in the sixth to go up 4-0.

“Remi pitched his butt off,” Mills said. “I was proud watching him. He was really on top of his game, pitching and locating well. We just couldn’t provide anything offensively. Frederica had a guy that really surprised us with a good slider going that day. He kept us off balance.”

The Trojans in Games 2 and 3 mustered a combined nine hits (five then four), exactly half the total they produced in the series opener. Frederica, meanwhile, tacked on 10 hits in the deciding Game 3, though some of those came with the JMA infield in while their backs were against the wall and really needing to make a play to keep the game within reach.