Dixie Ends Season Against Waynesville

The Dixie Greyhounds baseball has enjoyed success this season as they have in past seasons. But despite a 12 game winning streak earlier in the season, the team sputtered down the stretch and finally lost to Waynesville in the opening round of the state tournament. Dashing their hopes of back to back district titles. It was a frustrating loss for the seniors, a group that was used to success.

Dixie was able to get the lead when Greg Leonard and Wes Smith crossed the plate in the second inning. This gave them a 2-1 lead over the Spartans. Waynesville threatened in the 4th inning, advancing a runner to third base. But a timely double play by the Greyhounds got them out of danger. Aaron Worley unofficially had 6 strikeouts by the 5th inning so he was throwing a decent baseball. He had only lost one game the entire season.

The one run lead seemed to be holding fine as the team entered the 6th inning. The first Waynesville hitter reached base, but the next batter popped out to the catcher when he tried to bunt. The next batter flied out. Then came a 2 out rally, a coaches bane. The next batter was walked, and the damage was done when a bases clearing double on a ball hit in the gap scored two runs to give Waynesville the lead. Another batter was walked and finally the next batter grounded out to end the eruption.

Dixie went down 1-2-3 in to end the 6th inning. They did manage to get their first hitter on base in the final inning when he hit a blooper just over the heads of the infield. He advanced to second on a ground out. The next batter went down swinging and now Dixie was down to their final out. Dixie had a slim chance, but things would have to break the right way for them. Unfortunately the base runner was thrown out on a failed steal attempt trying to get into better scoring position. So that was game, set, and match for Dixie.

Coach Bingham was crestfallen after the game, “We gave the game away - had some errors that hurt us, and the kid from Waynesville pitched a very good game. We hit balls, but we hit then right at them – didn’t have anything fall. ” Despite this loss, the team did end up in second place in the league.

And Coach Bingham gave props to a successful senior class, “Aaron Worley, Josh Bingham, Ethan Hayes, and Wes Smith were the core of this group. Aaron ended up with 7 wins against 2 losses and is second all time in wins at the school. Ethan has been a solid player behind the plate, hits the ball hard, and is one of the all time RBI leaders. Josh was strong for us in 2009 and helped us in that district championship run, he has been solid for us in the outfield. Wes is 3-1 and has been a really good pitcher for us despite injury. All of these seniors will be missed.” He went on to say that this was the winningest class in school history averaging 18 wins per season.