KONSTANTIN VENGEROWSKY/Clarendon Citizen - Manning-Santee Post 68 American Legion Baseball Team was honored Sunday for their outstanding season. Each member will receive a jacket from the Post.
Manning-Santee baseball players honored
The Manning-Santee Post 68 American Legion baseball team received recognition for an outstanding season, Sunday, Aug. 21, at the American Legion Hut in Manning.
“I thought that they exceeded our expectations this season,” said Head Coach G.G. Cutter. “Our goal was to make it past the first round, and we started playing good baseball towards the end.”
Cutter said that the team faced six elimination games, but were able to find a way to win and make it all the way to the fourth round, or state semifinals. They beat West Ashley, Camden, Easley, Goose Creek and Conway in the playoffs, before falling to the eventual state and southeastern regional legion champs Gaffney in the semifinals. Cutter said that Manning was the third best team in the state, after Gaffney and Greenville. Manning ended the 2011 season with a 20-15 record.
The team will lose five players next season due to Legions baseball’s age limit of 19. The team will lose their number one and number four hitters, Michael Keels and Heath Smith, as well as three of their starting pitchers, Matt Mays, Kevin Cox and Zan Beasley.
“Our guys gave a lot of heart, a lot of hard work, and dedicated a lot of time,” said Keels, a sophomore, who plays centerfield at Spartanburg Methodist College. “We had a lot of leadership on this team, and we never gave up.”
Keels said that he’s glad that the younger players had the opportunity to go so far in the playoffs to see what it was like so they could repeat next year.
Mays, who played at USC Sumter last year, said that the team looked decent in the beginning of the season, but he didn’t expect to make it that far in the playoffs. He said that when they were down, they’d regroup and keep going.
“We got together and said we’d just have fun, and that’s the best ball we played all season,” said Mays.
Assistant Coach Billy Sylvester said that the guys were scrappy, even though they were down a lot, they fought back as hard they could, and never gave up.
“And that’s the best compliment a coach could get,” said Sylvester.
Post 68 has three baseball teams in the county: a Manning varsity team, a Manning junior varsity team and a Turbeville junior varsity team.
Anyone can try out for the teams, according to Bill Brewer, athletic officer for American Legion Post 68. Anyone 19 or under can try out for the varsity team, and anyone 17 or under can try out for the junior varsity teams. There are 45 legion teams in the state, and 5,000 nationwide.
