Sweet Water downs Spring Garden 8-0, moves closer to state title
Jonah Smith fires the final pitch of his high school career.
MONTGOMERY – Jonah Smith fired the last pitch of his accomplished high school career Wednesday evening. The opposing batter swung and missed. The whiff accounted for Smith’s 10th strikeout of the game and made Sweet Water an 8-0 winner over Spring Garden in the first game of the Class 1A state championship series.
Sasha Smith lunges for first base.
“He has been that way for three years. He is 14-2. He goes every game one, everybody knows it,” Sweet Water coach John Gluschick said of his starting pitcher’s performance Wednesday. “Today I just told him to relish this moment, his last high school start, and he did just that.” Smith, a UAB signee and reigning Class 1A Pitcher of the Year and Player of the Year, appeared nearly effortless in the second state championship start of his career. He allowed two hits and issued no walks while using only 89 pitches to get the complete game shutout. The hardest hit ball off him all afternoon traveled somewhere in the neighborhood of 380 feet and fell harmlessly into the glove of his younger brother Sasha Smith as the Bulldog centerfielder sprinted with his back to home plate and cradled the ball near his chest to culminate the over-the-shoulder catch.
“I owe him a lot. I probably have to buy him a burger or something when we get home,” Jonah Smith quipped about his younger brother’s starring moment.
Smith wowed onlookers on the mound and at the plate, going 3 for 4 with a double and three RBIs just a season after getting the series-clinching hit in extra innings of the 2017 state championship round, a three-game stretch that saw him earn Most Valuable Player honors.
Smith had the lead before the fourth Spring Garden batter of the game stepped to the plate Wednesday as Trent Sams walked and scored on the ace pitcher’s base hit to left. Braiden Broussard later singled in courtesy runner Chastian Washington to push it to 2-0.
Trent Sams slides in safely at third base.
Spring Garden struggled to get out of its own way, committing six errors in the contest. Sweet Water obliged their self-destruction by adding a pair of runs in each of the second, fourth and sixth innings.
Shamar Lewis doubled home Reid Joiner and Xavier Lucy in the second to set the lead at 4-0. Sams made it 5-0 in the fourth when he singled in Lucy. Jonah Smith then doubled to plate Sasha. Smith singled in Sams in the sixth to put the advantage at 7-0. Braiden Broussard singled to score Washington for the game’s final run.
Sams finished the game with a hit and two steals, his 32nd and 33rd stolen bases of the season.
“Speed kills,” Sams said.
“It puts pressure on the defense. A routine groundball to shortstop is a base hit if they don’t come get it and charge that baseball because he is so fast. Speed kills, like he said, and we just want to keep pressure on at all times,” Gluschick said of the senior’s role at the top of the Bulldog order.
Sweet Water is set to face Spring Garden in game two Thursday at 10 a.m. at Riverwalk Stadium in Montgomery.
“We get ready to play the Yankees. That’s what we do,” Gluschick said. “They’re a good ball club. We’re not going to take anybody for granted. We try to win every inning and that’s what we did. We’re not going to slack up tomorrow. They’ve won a lot of ball games. They’re a good team. We come in and play like we’re going to play the Yankees.”