By Donald Heath
Special for the Effingham Herald
SPRINGFIELD – The Effingham County baseball team’s transformation from 10 games under .500 last season to 18 over this season can be explained by similarities rather than numerical differences, says head coach Eric McCombie.
Last year, the Rebels learned not to dwell on losses. This year, they’re not dwelling on wins.
“You had to have a short memory (during 2024’s 10-20 season) because you had to go out and suit up the next day, that’s baseball,” McCombie said. “I think we developed the mentality of focusing on each day and it carried over to this year.”
That mindset continued Friday. Despite earning a hard-fought, subregion-clinching win a day earlier, ECHS wanted more and completed a three-game sweep of Evans with a 5-1 victory.
The Rebels (21-3, 8-1 Region 1-5A North) enter the region tournament as the North’s No. 1 seed and will host Statesboro in a best-of-three series beginning with a doubleheader on Thursday at 4 p.m.
If necessary, Game 3 will be played on Friday at 6 p.m. All three games will be played in Springfield.
The one-game region semifinals and finals will be played April 15 and 17 with seedings for the state playoffs at stake along with a region championship.
Effingham County has not won a region championship since 2019 when it won a school-record 31 games and advanced to the Class 6A Final Four at state.
ECHS met the Blue Devils earlier in the season (Feb. 17, 20, 21) and swept the three games 12-0, 7-3 and 12-2 en route to winning the Simmons Cup.
Statesboro (9-13, 4-8 Region 1-5A South) was the South subregion’s No. 4 seed. The Blue Devils finished their disappointing regular season with three losses to Brunswick.
The Rebels finished on the highest of highs. A year ago, Evans won the region championship and defeated ECHS in all three meetings.
“Obviously, we’ve gotten better physically, but mentality-wise we believe we can do things,” McCombie said. “We believe we can win. We believe we’re the best team out here and that’s just not what we were last year.”
And the Rebels showed what a difference a year makes. Ryan Wells’ bases-loaded triple highlighted ECHS’ 4-run first inning in Game 1’s 6-4 victory over Evans.
Two days later, Luke Edwards struck out 16 while pitching 6.2 scoreless innings of three-hit ball in a 1-0 nailbiter.
According to the Rebels’ statistics on MaxPreps, Edwards has allowed just one earned run in 32.2 innings and has 67 strikeouts and an 0.21 earned run average.
“Luke was electric and it was special to (clinch the subregion) at their place,” McCombie said. “Those games are good because that’s what we’ll see going forward. Games like last night get you ready for the state playoffs.
ECHS scored its lone run in the first inning on a wild pitch.
Catcher Karson Thompson had three hits, drove in two runs and also threw out two runners.
“We had a plan where we would play some extra guys, but we also had a plan that we wanted to sweep,” McCombie said. “We wanted to make a statement. We wanted to feel good about ourselves going into the (region tournament).
“We know it’s going to be tough to beat (Statesboro) five times. There’s no way we’re taking anyone lightly and when it gets time to suit up, we’re going to be ready for every pitch.”
