Fine finale
- Updated: July 31, 2024
Playing his last game with the Choccolocco Monsters this summer, Harrison drives in two runs, delivers go-ahead hit as Monsters win Game 1 of Sunbelt League title series.
By Joe Medley
East Alabama Sports Today
OXFORD — Hayes Harrison becomes the latest Choccolocco Monster to exit before the end of the season, but the Oxford High graduate and 2023 Alabama Mr. Baseball went out in style.
Harrison’s eighth-inning double provided the go-ahead run, and the Monsters beat the visiting Atlanta Crackers 5-4 in Wednesday’s Game 1 of the Sunbelt League title series.
Game 2 of the best-of-3 series is Friday in Atlanta. The Monsters (21-9), the league’s top seed, stand one victory away from the league title.
Game 3, if necessary, would be Saturday at Choccolocco Park.
After Wednesday’s game, Harrison announced that he had just played his last game with this year’s version of the Monsters. Like Rashad Robinson, Cole Tremain, Dawson Campbell and Andrew Allen before him, he must bow our early because of obligations with his college team.
Harrison must return to Northwest Shoals Community College after a trip.
“We’re going on a trip before we go back to Shoals,” Harrison said. ‘It was planned early.
The Monsters announced their return to Oxford in late spring, after playing the 2023 season in Columbus, Ga. The team had to move after the Atlanta Braves moved their Double-A affiliate from Mississippi to Columbus, leaving the Monsters without a home.
New Monsters general manager Roby Brooks pieced together a roster late in the Sunbelt offseason. They finished the regular season as the league’s top seed and have reached title series, which will stretch into August.
That pushed some players up against family plans and obligations related to their college programs.
Add in a wrist injury to Oxford High grad Trey Higgins, and the Monsters have carried on with the two two hitters in their order, their entire starting outfield, the league’s ERA leader and now Harrison, a first baseman/right fielder/pitcher.
Harrison is tied with the seventh-best batting average at .333. His two RBIs Wednesday left him with 22 for the season.
“I really enjoyed this summer,” he said. “I love these guys, best group of guys you could ask for. Coaches, as well, that know the game and just stayed after it,
“I have no doubt that we’re going to win the whole thing Friday or Saturday.”
Harrison’s go-ahead hit came after Hugh Windle’s dribbler into shallow center field went for a single and forced an errand throw that allowed him second base. He stole third and scored on Harrison’s double to make it 4-3.
“What set it up was Hugh making a dirt-ball read to get to third,” Monsters coach Ricky Ray Clayton said. “That set the whole thing up.
“Hitting with a runner at second is a little different than hitting with a runner at third. Hayes didn’t have to pull anything to get him over. He could just hit him in.”
Taylor Harris followed with a single to score Harrison for what proved to be the winning run. The Crackers pushed a run across with the help of two errors in the top of the ninth, but closer Avery Brown forced two grounders to end it.
Brown came on after Gage Shaver’s one-out triple in the eighth and struck out Tyler Kelson before inducing a Nicholas Ford grounder.
“Phenomenal, turning point in the game right there,” Clayton said. “I just knew we had to have a strikeout. We went infield in, and there’s only one guy to go to, and that’s Avery Brown.”
Monsters first baseman Andrew Wells had to come off the bag to field an errant throw before spinning around and tagging Ford.
“I was able to get my glove on him before he could get out of the way and give us some momentum, so we could score some runs,” Wells said.
Wells also stretched right for a bounce throw for the third out with runners on second and third in the fourth inning.
It all went into helping the Monsters overcome Kaleb Huffman’s two-run home run in the first inning and Jaden Anderson’s solo shot to tie the game at 3-3 in the fifth.
The Monsters answered Huffman’s home run, which stretched his league record to 13 on the season, with a three-run third. Harrison was hit by a pitch with bases loaded, and Harris hit a two-run single to make it 3-2.
Anderson’s solo homer in the fifth tied the game 3-3.
“Our team just battled the whole way through,” Harrison said. “We never had any give-up. None of us did. We knew we were going to have a shot, just like we’ve had a shot all year. It don’t matter what inning It don’t matter when.
“We’ve always been in every game. It don’t matter the score.”
Photo gallery by Joe Medley
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