When Kyle Farmer was hired as the baseball coach at Bryan County High School it wasn’t like giving the keys to the car to a newly licensed 16-year-old driver.

Farmer had been an assistant coach at Benedictine for 12 years under his brother Kevin. During his tenure with the Cadets they won two state championships and made deep state playoff runs in several other years. Overall, in his 12 seasons at BC the Cadets were 294-100-2.

The Redskins (13-17) concluded a somewhat disappointing season last week when they lost at Wilcox County, 4-2 and 14-6, in the opening round of the GHSA Class A-DII state playoffs.

The two losses to the Patriots capped a late season collapse which saw Bryan County lose 10 of its last 11 games. Despite that skid it marked the fourth straight year the Redskins made the state playoffs and Farmer will use that as a motivator going into the future.

Despite it being his first head coaching job Farmer did not, he said, find himself overwhelmed by the job.

“The biggest thing is the losses, the wins and losses, are on your name now,” Farmer said with a chuckle. “Being a new head coach wasn’t too much different from what I did at Benedictine.

“Kevin gave me a lot of responsibilities,” Farmer said. “I knew the difference between being the head coach and an assistant and the responsibilities.”

Bryan County lost seven seniors in Cooper Ennis, Geoff Hovis, AJ Thomas, Cay’ron Rawls, Gage Truxall, Jacob Joyner and Krish Patel off an 18-player varsity roster.

“It was great for the seniors to have made the playoffs all four years,” Farmer said. “It was a huge accomplishment and I was proud of their fight. It could have been very easy for them to shut it down and have people feel sorry for us.

“Although we had a string of losses, they never lost their competitive edge. I felt every game they competed in and that was a testament to their character. Against Wilcox County we were one pitch away against the number one team in their region.”

The loss in the first game of the series with Wilcox was excruciating as the Redskins carried a 1-0 lead into the fourth inning behind a strong outing by Cooper Ennis only to see the Patriots’ Myles Davis hit a grand slam home run in the bottom of the fourth on a two strike, two out pitch.

The second game was a portrait of how the last third of the season basically went as Wilcox  used two big innings to salt away the win. The Pats scored five in the first for a quick 5-2 lead. After the Redskins battled back to tie the game, 6-6, Wilcox got six in the fourth and it was too much to overcome.

Farmer has already turned the page with his focus now on next season. He will rebuild around freshman Gunner Ennis, sophomore Eli Koskela and junior Ethan Williams.

“I’m going to let them relax and catch up on academics the last couple of weeks,” Farmer said of his returnees. “When school is out, we’re going to lift, hit and work on long toss all summer.

“We’ve got to get bigger, stronger and faster to compete. We’re in a good baseball region.”

Looking ahead the Redskins are going to be young and depth will be an issue although, Farmer said, there are some promising rising freshmen. Koskela, Gunner Ennis, sophomore Jordan Fabin and Williams are the leading mound candidates.

“We’re going to have to have a lot of young kids step up,” Farmer said. “I’m looking for our sophomore to make a huge impact and I’m excited about the crop of eighth graders.

“We’re going to have to throw them to the wolves early. They’re going to have to grow up early and fast. That’s the way it goes.”