Chad Cope hadn't decided who his starting pitcher was going to be Saturday until his Watson Chapel baseball team had already made the trip from Pine Bluff to Jacksonville.
It was on the field at Dupree Park that Cope checked out Josh Dardenne's left shoulder, which had been jammed during a fall while playing third base in Friday's victory in the first round of the Class 5A state tournament.
"When he started throwing when we got here, he said he was feeling better," Cope said. "He said he could go."
Dardenne settled in after a rocky start in the first inning and held Nettleton scoreless over the final six innings in a 4-1 victory that advanced Watson Chapel into Monday's semifinals.
Dardenne's ability to regroup and the ejection of Nettleton shortstop Nick Brown helped turn around a game in which Nettleton led for four innings.
With Nettleton leading 1-0 in the top of the fifth, Brown hit a one-out single to second base but was picked off at first by Watson Chapel catcher Landon Colson. Neither Nettleton Coach Wade Massey nor Brown agreed with the call, and Massey said Brown was ejected for saying the call was "terrible."
"You're going to throw somebody out for saying 'terrible?' " Massey said. "That changed the outlook of the game. [Brown is] my three-hole hitter, a senior, leading the team in hitting. That changes the whole aspect of the game.
"The kid is known as a leader in the dugout, and when you take that out, it changes."
After a walk, Dardenne struck out Luke Sexton to end the fifth and allowed Watson Chapel to make its move.
The Wildcats (20-5) got to a tiring Braden Camp in the bottom half of the inning, when Chris Williams was hit by a pitch and Kiren Young hit an RBI double to center field to tie the game at 1-1. Dardenne drove in Young with a single to make it 2-1.
Justin Pierce walked in the sixth, moved to second on a wild pitch and scored when Dardenne was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded. Jaylon Jackson's single up the middle scored Young to make it 4-1.
Cope said the Wildcats got to Camp when they started being more selective. Camp ended up allowing 4 runs on 6 hits with 5 strikeouts over 5 1/3 innings.
"We started taking there a lot on 2-0 and 3-1," he said. "It's a gamble, but it happened to pay off. I knew if we got some guys on base we could do something."
Dardenne, a senior right-hander, gave up two singles in the first inning with the second coming from Jordan Volner that drove in Brown to give the Raiders (16-14) a 1-0 lead. Nettleton had at least one runner in every remaining inning, but Dardenne managed to keep squeezing out of jams.
"When umpires take control of the game, you can't do anything," Massey said. "As a coach, I did not know how to react."
Sports on 05/18/2014