Griffis pleased with Panthers’ season

Published 3:00 pm Thursday, May 19, 2022

CHULA — Take a young Tiftarea Academy baseball team. Make their schedule even more difficult than a year ago and throw in one of their biggest rivals in the state playoffs. That doesn’t sound like a good idea on paper, but the end result saw the Panthers make it back tot he GISA Class AAA final four.

Their achievements are not lost on first year head coach Dusty Griffis.

“We really feel like we got the most out of what we had,” he said. Tiftarea finished 19-9 with a squad that returned few veterans and cast many new faces into big roles.

The Panthers won the region for the fourth consecutive finished season. They defeated rival Brookwood in the quarterfinals on a walk-off home run by Hayden Murphy and went 7-3 against GHSA schools.

Nearly every position showed its youth. Both Tiftarea catchers were new to varsity. Four starters, representing 98 RBIs and 80 runs scored, graduated after 2021. John Jackson, Lane Cole, Wesley Malone and Hershel Moore combined for all of 19 varsity at-bats in 2021, compared to 290 in 2022.

Griffis pointed out the improvement in other players, such as Jam Presley.

Presley hit .222 as a junior, a stat that jumped to .347 this season. The submariner jumped from 5 2/3 innings pitched to 22 1/3 as well. Robert Garner, who started many games, didn’t pitch for the varsity a year ago.

“I really feel like we overachieved,” said Griffis, who fortunately had Murphy, Logan Moore, Matthew Malone and John Austin Lee to hold down the fort.

Matthew Malone hit .202 in 2021 and was above .300 for most of 2022. Lee hit a hot streak at the end of last season, which not only carried over into this year, but stayed. He improved his average from .220 to .357, a feat that also included an inside the part grand slam.

“A lot of them stepped up and it made me proud,” he said.

Murphy hit .541 in 2022. He belted 10 homers, including a streak of three consecutive games where he hit a leadoff blast. That’s in addition to the 1.62 ERA and 120 strikeouts in 60 innings.

When asked if he’d ever had another player have a season quite Murphy’s, Griffis responded, “Not like that.”

The GISA is loaded with talent this year. All four teams from Region 3-AAA made state and three won a first round series (the fourth, Valwood, had been paired with Southland Academy in the first round). Four players were total were picked to be All-State out of the region, a testament to the other schools around the state. Murphy was Tiftarea’s lone rep.

“It was no joke to get on All-State this year,” said Griffis.

Tiftarea loaded up its schedule this year, facing a number of GHSA schools. He pointed out that the only GISA schools the Panthers competed against in 2022 were from its own region. Games against Gatewood, Bulloch Academy and Pinewood Christian in the regular season were slated as well, but were rained out. Gatewood and Pinewood were both playing for championships over the weekend.