“Exciting time on County Line” – Jets wins baseball Class 7A Area 8 title

MADISON – “Exciting time for folks on County Line.” Those words came freely from Johnny Johnson as head coach of the James Clemens baseball team which won the Class 7 Area 8 championship for the first time in program history. The Jets had to win one of two area season-ending games against crosstown Bob Jones to capture the title that the Patriots have “owned” the last several years.

With a 5-4 victory in game one over Bob Jones, James Clemens completed a perfect Area record and received the nod the Jets will host No. 2 ranked Hewitt-Trussville (24-7) in round one of the Class 7A State Baseball Playoffs making their playoff appearance for the fifth consecutive year. They will host the visiting the Huskies at 5:00 and 7:30 p.m. on Friday with a third game, if necessary, at 1:00 p.m. on Saturday.

With its runner-up spot in Area 8, Bob Jones will travel to Birmingham to face No. 1 ranked Vestavia Hills (26-9). Sparkman also advanced in the post-season playoffs and will face Thompson in first-round competition. In Class 5A, Madison Academy (22-12) defeated Fairview (20-16) in a best-ofthree series and advanced to second-round action against Boaz.

The crosstown rival end of the regular season battle between the two Madison schools was a three-game series. The Jets defeated the Patriots 5-4 and 6-0 in the first two games before falling in the third contest 10-1. James Clemens (22-16, 6-0) needed just a single victory to take the title and did so in rousing style going up 5-nothing scoring three runs in the second and one run each in the fourth and fifth innings. Head coach Johnny Johnson saw his Jets actually have a runner on third base with less than two outs remaining in six of the seven innings. Bob Jones got on the board scoring four runs in the fifth inning, which included a three-run homer.

“This is a talented team as we lost our top two pitchers, Matt Drinkwater and Will Votroubek, due to injuries and that put a lot of pressure on our other hurlers,” said Johnson, in his eighth season as Jets’ head coach. “Trying to figure out that pitching rotation through an extremely tough season schedule was a chore for us.”

In the area-winning opening game versus the Patriots, an array of players stepped up in a big way and were led by an unlikely Jet in sophomore Dez Ruffin who went 3-for-3 with two RBIs and had three stolen bases. He did all of his damage batting ninth in the lineup. Seniors Drinkwater and Brooks Rhodes did their best both going two for four at the plate. On the mound, senior Jesse Isensee was the winning pitcher tossing four and one-third innings with five strikeouts. Fellow senior Tyler Lewis and two and two-thirds innings in relief and posted four strikeouts.

“To go into their (Bob Jones) place and win as we did was huge for our program and this was a big step for us and something that we have been working on for a long time,” added Johnson. “This year was a rollercoaster for us with the injuries and your typical discipline issues within the team, but we focused on winning the area title and we did so talking a lot about the situations we can control. What an exciting time for us.”