THOMASVILLE – The Yellow Jackets took the diamond on February 4 for their pre-season scrimmage against Chiles. Thomas County Central lost the game 6-4, but when it comes to a scrimmage the goal of the game is never the end result.

“They are incredibly valuable. You can’t replace competition,” said Central pitching coach Sam Fonder. “What we do every day is try to create some sort of competition in practice to help everybody get better and to get them familiar with it so that way when it’s February 10 and we’re kicking it off against City we’re ready go to.”

Something that will certainly be a strength for this Central program will be their pitching staff, which Fonder described as a “really deep staff”. 

“We’re really excited about the rotation and staff in general headed into the season,” said Fonder. “Not many teams have the oppotunity to say that they have more than one ace on the staff and I think we’re really blessed to say that we have quite a few solid pitchers that could earn a title like that.”

Fonder specifically mentioned pitchers Reid Gainous, Landon Walsh, and Dallas Pitts. 

The Yellow Jackets used this scrimmage against Chiles to give their pitchers in-game experience, rotating through all of their hurlers.

“We used the series as an opportunity to get pretty much everybody who does pitch, an opportunity to pitch in the game,” Fonder said. “That’s calculated for multiple reasons and it’s not often the best looking product when you’re throwing every single pitcher, but it does give us a chance to see which people have really stepped up, which people have working their butts off in the weight room and throwing, and doing the things outside of practice that they need to to improve over the last few months.”

Central will begin their season at Thomasville on February 1.