HEWITT — It’s always a weird feeling when there are as many expressions of concern in the winning dugout as there are smiles and laughter.
But that’s what happens when, even in a win, you lose — as in losing your ace pitcher to a scary injury.
Waco Midway, ranked second in Class 6A in the most recent Texas High School Baseball Coaches Association state poll, has enjoyed a sensational senior season from its ace right-hander Cameron Johnson. But in the aftermath of Midway’s 6-2 victory over visiting Bryan on Thursday night in 12-6A play, the celebration was subdued, as Johnson leaned on a pair of crutches.
“I’m a little worried, to be honest with you,” Midway head coach Eddie Cornblum said. “We’ll find out here in a bit.”
Johnson has delivered for the Panthers (20-3-1, 8-1) even better than Amazon Prime this season. How good has he been? Put it this way: His last two starts before Thursday’s game resulted in a perfect game and another no-hitter.
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But in the top of the sixth inning against Bryan (5-15, 0-7), with a 6-2 lead, a runner on base and two outs, Johnson’s back leg gave way as he was firing to the plate. The ball sailed wide of the strike zone and Johnson went down in a heap, as both home and visiting fans grew eerily silent.
Johnson was able to rise to his feet after a couple of minutes and walk off the field, but his night was over.
Cornblum and the pitcher’s teammates are just praying that Johnson’s high school career isn’t over. It was a weird play, to say the least, as Johnson just seemed to lose his balance during the delivery.
“I went to check the roster in case he was getting into trouble,” Cornblum said. “I didn’t think that was going to happen, and I was looking at pitching options and lineup changes and stuff like that, to pinch-hit. Then I came out, saw the ball go to the left and saw him on the ground, and didn’t know what happened.”
Johnson’s quest for a third straight no-hitter evaporated into the night sky on the first batter he faced. Bryan’s left-handed-hitting center fielder Chance Crawford got around on a Johnson offering and yanked it deep over the right-field fence for a home run and a quick 1-0 Viking lead.
It was the first home run Johnson had allowed all season. But the pitcher, a McLennan Community College signee, didn’t seem fazed. Johnson settled in thereafter, retiring 12 of the next 14 batters.
“He’s so consistent and he competes with the best of them, and he’s our guy,” Cornblum. “I wasn’t really worried about one run. We had to answer that, and we had to score one to win anyway.”
Both teams made the pitchers work in a 35-minute first inning, though. Bryan hurler Gavyn Simpson struggled to throw strikes and walked four of the first five batters, with the other hitter in that stretch, Panthers cleanup man Darrell Catlin, delivering a sacrifice fly to tie the game.
After Simpson walked his fourth batter, Bryan coach Justin Garcia pulled him, even thought he had not surrendered a hit.
Midway tacked on three more runs in the inning for a 4-1 lead. Daylen Kirks picked up the Panthers’ second sacrifice fly of the game, and then Garrett Wiethorn smacked a two-run single into the gap in left-center field.
“Our kids competed, I thought we had some good at-bats, we didn’t chase bad pitches. We were able to get in scoring position early,” Cornblum said.
The Panthers pushed the gap to 5-1 in the second inning. Sawyer Haynes reached with two outs when Bryan’s Isaac Chavarria hit the Midway leadoff man with a pitch. Haynes moved into scoring position with a stolen base. Then two-hole hitter Jon Torres followed by squirting a slow roller toward the shortstop. The ball trickled across the diamond, giving Torres plenty of time to reach on an infield hit, and then Bryan shortstop Mason Garcia bobbled the ball on the pickup, allowing Haynes to scurry all the way home.
It wasn’t a huge hitting night for the Panthers, who produced just four knocks. But the last of those gave Midway a comfortable insurance policy.
In the bottom of the sixth, Wiethorn worked a two-out walk. Then junior third baseman Dru Ohmstede spanked a roller just inside the first-base line and all the way to the right-field corner. Wiethorn scored easily, and Ohmstede hustled all the way around for an RBI triple.
“The triple at the end with Ohmstede was big,” Cornblum said. “That kind of let us take a little breath and breathe a little bit.”
Midway also put on a master class in leather work, turning an inning-ending double play in the second and getting a pair of web gems from its first baseman Catlin in foul territory. The best of those plays came to open the second inning, when Catlin kept angling to his left to track a high foul pop off the bat of Bryan’s Jayden Potter. The fielder appeared to have little chance to get to it, but he dove up against the bullpen fence to snag it for the out.
“He owes us a new pair of pants, but he made a great play,” Cornblum said. “Heck of a play, that was good.”
Midway has positioned itself nicely for another District 12-6A championship, and obviously the Panthers’ state ranking suggests that they could be a major threat in the state playoffs.
But Cornblum also knows that just like in politics, the polls don’t really matter. Election day — or in Midway’s case, the postseason — is what counts.
“It doesn’t matter, man. What matters is where you finish at the end,” the Midway coach said. “All that stuff is just kind of fluff. To me, who cares if you’re [ranked] 8 or 2 or whatever. It matters at the end. I’ve had teams that weren’t ranked at all, and we’ve gone three or four rounds. No, we don’t talk about that stuff. A couple of guys brought it up, and we were like, ‘Hey, that’s great for notoriety, but it doesn’t mean anything.’”
Midway certainly hopes that Johnson doesn’t miss any extended amount of time. But even beyond that, there’s still a lot of work to do before the playoffs roll around the first weekend of May.
“It comes around fast,” Cornblum said. “Not settling in. I think the biggest thing is, you’ve got to keep getting better. A lot of programs, you start getting into the playoffs, you start taking a little bit more time off, and I think you just have to keep preparing and keep getting better as you go.
"Because one mistake can cost you, and I’ve seen it so many times. We’ve just got to make sure that we’re staying on top of that stuff, because every practice matters. That’s going to be huge moving forward.”