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Highlanders get baseball under way
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With most of his players still excited about winning the state title in basketball, Highlander baseball coach Joey Brown barely had enough time to squeeze in one week’s worth of practice before they scrimmaged Robert Toombs Academy on Monday.

The Highlanders lost 12-2 against a seasoned Crusaders squad.

Last year was the first year the Highlanders formed a junior varsity squad and began their baseball program. This year, they have their first varsity squad.

"Overall, we are blessed with some very good athletes," Brown said. "We have four freshmen and one sophomore in the starting rotation. Of those five, three played JV last year and two are new transfers into the program. Given that our JV is looking very good, I would say the future is very bright for baseball at FPCA."

The scrimmage loss was not a disappointment to the coach, who said the game gave him an opportunity to rotate several players into the game and analyze positions and pitching rotations.

He said Highlander pitchers Ryan Smiley and Nathan Ward did well against the Crusaders and said there were positive aspects to their offense and defense.

"Considering that some of those guys had not been on a baseball field for two years I think we did very well," Brown said.

Knowing he had players coming from the basketball team, Brown said he planned the baseball schedule in a way that gave him ample time to prepare for region games.

"In small school baseball, it is sometimes difficult to get a full team engaged early on," he said. "Therefore, I purposely set up the schedule to give us some time before the key sub-region contests start at the end of this month."

The Highlanders will host David Emmanuel at 3:30 p.m. Wednesday at Liberty Independent Troop Park.

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