Swain County baseball played four games of its 2020 schedule before the season was called off due to the pandemic. The Devils finished 1-3, but all three losses were close (a combined six-score deficit). The Erwin and Rosman losses were both walk-offs, and the 16-13 defeat at the hands of Franklin was largely a result of an uncharacteristic amount of Swain errors. Head Coach Tyler Shuler believes that the experience benefitted his young team.
“I would definitely say it gave them experience in handling adversity,” Shuler said of the abbreviated 2020 season. “I had two freshmen pitchers that threw, and both did well, but they were learning how quickly the game can change, defensively. Hopefully they have a better understanding of how to take care of what we need to take care of, making the routine play, not adding extra pressure. It’s like building a snowman, once it starts rolling, you let it compound and it gets bigger and bigger and everything gets worse and worse.”
The aforementioned freshman pitchers, now sophomores, are Charlie Collins and Gabe Lillard, both of whom Shuler will lean heavily on in the pitching rotation along with Carson Taylor. The team will be young again this season, and Shuler will count on his returners to help shore up an inexperienced batting order on the offensive side.
“We’re bringing back Damian Lossiah, our third baseman, and he’s a big bat for us in the lineup, as is Carson Taylor,” said Shuler. “Batting-wise we’ve got a lot of young guys who don’t have the experience, so it’s going to be a very interesting year. Not just for us, but for everybody, because no one got to get a full look at what they had through a season. Young team, got even younger kids coming in, so it’ll be scrappy.”
Lossiah boasted a batting average of .463 as a sophomore in 2019, including a home run and a triple, and .385 over the four games of his 2020 junior season. Taylor, appearing in just 12 games, batted .250 in 2019 before improving to .300 over the four games of 2020.
Shuler pointed to Hayesville, Murphy, and 2019 conference champion Rosman as key games on the 2021 schedule. The Devils will open up the season at home against Murphy on Tuesday, April 27.
“That will be a good gauge for us to start the year,” he said of the opener.