FORT MILL – In his first trip back to Nation Ford, former baseball coach Stas Swerdzewski admitted things felt weird.
Now head baseball coach at Catawba Ridge, Swerdzewski made his first return trip to Nation Ford in the first baseball game between the two schools, which saw the Falcons come away with a 6-0 win.
“It was definitely different, especially being in the other dugout,” Swerdzewski said. “It is what it is. Once we got between the white lines there was no focused on that and we just did what we needed to do to win.”
Swerdzewski coached at Nation Ford for four seasons before making the move over to Catawba Ridge. With the loss, the Copperheads are now 2-4 overall on the season. Swerdzewski said he has high expectations for this first season of Catawba Ridge baseball.
“I expect us to win,” he said. “I expect us to fight a hard as we can. We aren’t going to use youth as an excuse this year. Obviously, we have a young team, but we have a talented team. If we don’t constantly seek to get better, than nothing will change. We have enough talent on our team to compete.”
Nation Ford’s new head coach Michael Lewis is in his first year as head coach after coaching with Swerdzewski for several seasons and has his team at 5-0 in the early going in the season. Lewis said it was weird looking over at Swerdzewski in the third base dugout and seeing his friend on a different team. However, he knew that once the game started, that friendship would be set aside for the time being.
“They came out like I thought they would,” Lewis said. “Coach (Swerdzewski) always has a very disciplined team. They are going to be fundamentally sound. They have a lot of good players. It was a little weird, but once we settled into the game, we settled in.”
Lewis said he has answered a lot of questions with his team being 5-0 on the season, but time will tell exactly how good they can be.
“We feel like we have good pitching,” Lewis said. “Our strength will be pitching and playing good defense. If we check our ego at the batters’ box, we can put runs together. Ultimately, being strong on the mound and defensively and being sound fundamentally, that will be the key to our success.”
Wilson tosses first no-hitter in Copperhead history
No-hitters are rare, but always historic. But some are even more so.
In a different game, sophomore Harrison Wilson tossed a five-inning no-hitter in a 10-0 win over Fairfield Central the day before they played Nation Ford. Wilson, who also played quarterback for Catawba Ridge this past fall, struck out 14 hitters, while walking two batters. Wilson threw 89 pitches in the no-hitter with 56 of them being strikes. It was his first start on the mound this season.
Ironically, the game was just the fifth game ever for Catawba Ridge and their first ever home game. Wilson said that he was so focused in on the task at hand, and didn’t realize he hadn’t given up a hit.
“I was just pitching,” he said. “I was pitching to contact to see if they could hit the fastball. They couldn’t really catch up with it so I relied on that a lot.”
Wilson didn’t realize the accomplishment until after the game, which ended with the help of a walk-off hit from Brody Tesimale in the fifth inning.
“I knew they had very few hits,” he said.
Wilson said he plans on playing college baseball eventually after his time is up in the next two years for the Copperheads. Wilson will continue to be a part of the Catawba Ridge rotation throughout the season. Swerdzewski said he is looking forward to seeing his pitcher, who also plays shortstop, continue to lead throughout the season.
“It was a region game for us,” Swerdzewski said. “It was great to have Harrison out there and pitch as well as he did. It was definitely a memorable first game in The Swamp (what the team calls their home field).”
Mac Banks: mbanks@comporium.net, @MacBanksFM
