GREENE COUNTY
Lake Oconee Academy baseball has lost five straight games entering this week, its longest streak of the season.
The Titans dropped three straight region games to Towns County the week leading up to spring break and also lost two more to a pair of out-ofstate opponents in Lexington Catholic (KY) and Mason County (KY) last week. They’re now 12-9 overall and 5-6 in league play heading into this week.
“We’ve got a little bit into a slump,” LOA head coach Mark Miller said. “We just haven’t been able to score runs. … That’s baseball, though. You’re not going to be hot all the time. My hopes are if we are going to have any type of a slump, we have it now, rather than when the playoffs start.”
The Titans only have a few more games before the Class A Division II state playoffs start on April 24.
LOA will close out its region schedule with Georgia School for Innovation & Classics (GSIC) for a three-game series this week and will play a makeup league game against Aquinas next Tuesday. The Titans also will play host to non-region opponent ACE Charter a day later on April 19.
“We went to Florida last week and played two games against schools from Kentucky, with one being a lot larger than us,” Miller said. “Our plan down there was to rest a lot of guys, especially our pitchers. We ran some bullpen game, as well as I played a lot of guys that don’t typically get to play.”
Lexington Catholic (KY) run-ruled Lake Oconee Academy 10-0 on April 3rd. The Knights’ pitching staff was able to hold the Titans to two hits and outscore them by double-digits in five innings.
Mason County then edged out LOA 2-1 the next day. The Titans had a 1-0 lead after a Trace Wood hit drove in Garrett Payne in the fourth, although the Royals were able to come back and win.
“I wanted to make sure everybody got a lot of playing time down there,” Miller said. “We played both games like a scrimmage and didn’t put a lot of stock into it. It would’ve been nice to have won, but hopefully, the bats start getting hot this week with the few games remaining on our schedule.”
Currently, Lake Oconee Academy sits in fourth place in the region standings; however, anything can happen in the next few weeks to where the Titans can move up a spot going into the state playoffs.
“If sweep GSIC and beat Aquinas, we will finish as the 3-seed,” Miller stated. “We wanted to be at home because no LOA baseball team has hosted a playoff game, but we’re going to fall short of that.”
LOA has only been to the postseason once in its short history, with that trip being two years ago. The Titans entered the Class A Public playoffs as a four-seed facing Schley County, which swept them.
“I think because we’ve played some great teams, granted we didn’t win them all, I do think we are prepared for playoff baseball,” Miller said. “I just want us to get on a little bit hotter streak going into it.”
LOA will rely on players such as Payne, Harrison Tolleson and Rhett Sandhagen to provide leadership for the younger guys heading into this final stretch of the regular season before the playoffs.
All three of them, who are all seniors, make up a small majority of the current roster that was on the 2021 squad, which made it to the postseason. They can help pave the way for the younger guys.
“I would certainly hope so,” Miller said when asked if the team’s three seniors can help lead. “To be honest, we haven’t really talked about the playoffs much, but these next two weeks, our will be on refocusing on our goals. Plus, making sure that we are playing with a lot of energy and discipline.”