When it comes to winning baseball and competing for championships, Kyle Farmer knows what it takes. He's been there.
As a player at Calvary Day, the first-year Bryan County baseball coach was a sterling senior second baseman on the Cavaliers’ state championship team. That period capped a three-run in which Calvary won a state title in 2005 and was runner-up in 2006.
After playing at Newberry College, he returned to take an assistant coaching job at Benedictine under his brother, Kevin. In 12 seasons, the Cadets won two state championships and eight region crowns–nine if you want to count the COVID season–and finished second three times.
As the Redskins (7-6, 4-2 Region 3A-DII) head into the meat of their schedule, Farmer isn’t ready to declare his team as the one to beat in one of the top Class A-DII regions in the state–but he likes what he has seen of his young and improving squad.
“I’m excited about what we’re doing,” Farmer said. “We have played some good competition and played a lot of teams out of our classification. It was all done to prepare us for our region.
“I think we’ve handled the situation pretty well,” Farmer said. “We had a chance to beat ECI last week (6-5 loss). We’re still learning. We’re still a relatively young team with not a lot of varsity experience.”
Going into a Tuesday night home game with Claxton, the Redskins were in fifth-place behind Screven County (7-3, 4-0), Metter (7-3, 4-0), ECI (7-4, 3-1) and McIntosh County Academy (4-5, 3-1).
Fortunately, other than ECI who they lost to twice, Bryan County still has to play all the other teams ahead of them. The challenge is to beat those in the lower half of the standings. It has swept Jenkins County and Savannah but needs to do the same with Claxton (0-7 0-4) and Portal (4-4, 1-3).
“Our goal is the same as it has been since I took the job and that’s to win a region championship,” Farmer said. “We’ve got to believe we’re capable and have that mindset.
“That goal is still in front of us,” Farmer said. “We need some things to happen and for some things to go our way. We’ve got to take care of business.”
Last year Bryan County finished second to Metter and hosted its first state playoff game ever. Unfortunately, it drew a red-hot Swainsboro team and got swept.
Although Farmer is in his first year at Bryan County, he is no stranger to the other schools in the region. As a player at Calvary and in his early years at BC those teams were in the same region with several of these teams including Bryan County.
“I’ve competed against these teams,” Farmer said. “They’ve all had strong programs over the years.”
The Redskins have seven seniors led by shortstop Cooper Ennis, first baseman AJ Thomas and third baseman Geoff Hovis, but sophomore Eli Koskela and freshman Gunner Ennis are also key contributors.
Koskela, who started every game last year at catcher, is perhaps the Redskins’ most versatile player. He not only catches but he’s also the team’s top pitcher and can play the outfield. He is hitting .371 and has a sparkling 2. 41 ERA with 19 strikeouts in 20.1 innings of work.
Ennis has been a real find in left field where he’s hitting a team leading .414 with 12 hits. Thomas is hitting .349 with a team high 15 hits. Cooper Ennis also has 12 hits and has logged a staff high 23.2 innings. Hovis’ nine RBI leads the team while Cooper Ennis, Koskela and Thomas all have five extra base hits.
“They’re both good athletes,” Farmer said of Koskela and Gunner Ennis. “Eli has been our guy on the mound. He’s done a fantastic job.”
Joining Gunner Ennis in the outfield are Cayron Rawls in center and right is shared by Keller Groover, Ashton Martina and Brayden Collins. Thomas on first, Krish Patel at second, Cooper Ennis at short and Hovis at third make up the infield.
However, when Koskela, Cooper Ennis or Hovis are pitching, everything shifts.
“There’s a lot of moving pieces, especially in a three-game week, when any of those guys are pitching,” Farmer said. “You move one guy, you move the entire lineup.”