HINES FURNITURE ATHLETE OF THE WEEK

Hines Furniture Athlete of the Week: Laurence Manning's Campbell pitches Swampcats past Hammond

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Laurence Manning went into Friday's matchup with Hammond in the SCISA 3A baseball playoffs as underdogs.

The Swampcats traveled to Columbia to face the two-time reigning state champs and were going to need a massive pitching performance from Jackson Campbell to lead with a victory.

Campbell delivered.

The Swampcat ace pitched a complete game, allowing just one unearned run in a 6-1 win, sending LMA to the upper bracket championship, which was played on Wednesday. That performance also earned Campbell recognition as the Hines Furniture Athlete of the Week.

"It means a lot to have a lot of people behind me," Campbell said of winning the vote. "I think its important to have a community that's really supportive of its members for winning awards like this."

Campbell was quick to thank God as well as his teammates and the coaching staff for giving him the opportunity to start on Friday. LMA head coach Barry Hatfield made the decision to start the senior southpaw as they arrived in Columbia and that decision paid off in spades.

"We got there, and coach gave me the ball and told me I was pitching and I had the mindset that I had to get the job done," Campbell said. "You can't really lose focus playing at a place like that and facing a team like Hammond because a little bit of slack will lead to a big mistake and runs."

Campbell got out to a slow start, needing to run through a lot of pitches to get through the first two innings. He was able to settle in as the game continued and eventually finished the complete game with 103 pitches thrown.

"As the game went on and stayed close, I got more confident," Campbell said. "The longer it went, the more confident I felt that I was going to be able to get the job done."

One aspect that helped Campbell take control of the game was his breaking ball. Hatfield credits his senior pitcher's ability to develop the pitch throughout the season.

"He had enough breaking ball that they could not just sit on his fastball. The last time he was over there he gave up a home run and that was in large part because they understood that he didn't have a workable breaking ball," Hatfield said. "In the middle of the game he threw a 2-2 breaking ball and missed and then struck out one of their best hitters on a 3-2 breaking ball. From that point on, the idea of having to honor a breaking ball was there and he has the velocity that if you guess wrong, you're not catching up."

Campbell said he really spent a lot of time improving his breaking ball to prepare for games like the matchup with Hammond.

"The first time we played them, I did not have a breaking ball. I'll say it. I think that was pretty obvious with how that game went versus how Friday's game went," Campbell said. "I've really been working every day on that, trying to perfect that so I would have it for big games like that."

The game was locked in a 1-1 tie until the top of the seventh, when LMA finally broke through with a 5-run inning. Campbell came out for the bottom of the inning and got two quick outs against the bottom of the Skyhawk lineup. When the order flipped, Tucker Toman got on base with a single before a double from Bentley Yeatts. Campbell settled down after that, inducing a lineout to third from Dylan Richardson for the final out.

"I just had to stay calm and focus on what I was doing and make sure I don't try to do too much," Campbell said.

Hatfield said one of the keys to Campbell's success was that ability succeed against the bottom of the lineup. Pitchers can't afford to let runners on base in front of Toman and Yeatts and Campbell avoided that all night long.

"Hit ability to focus, because when you lose eight or nine (in the batting order), you're going to be out of the game," Hatfield said. "I was real proud of him."

This was an important win for a senior heavy Swampcat team. Campbell wants his final season at Laurence Manning to last as long as possible, so every win counts.

"It really meant a lot to me because that win took a lot of stress off out team with not having to play Monday. That saved a lot of pitching," Campbell said. "This class has been through a lot. We've been through many ups and many downs. Before this year, it seemed like more downs, but this year has really felt like it's a lot of ups."