Blue Devils make adjustments for park, Sumrall Bobcats

Making the adjustment to playing in a larger ballpark and a wider, deeper outfield has been a point of emphasis for the Water Valley Blue Devils in practices leading up to their Class 3A state title series with Sumrall.

All of the MHSAA’s state championship games are played at Trustmark Park in Pearl. The home of the Class AA Mississippi Braves features a fence that is 402 feet deep in center field, 332 feet down the right field line and 330 down the line in left. All of the dimensions are bigger than almost every high school field in the state while the playing surface will arguably be the quickest any of the Blue Devils or Bobcats have played on. (May 24, 2010, Page 2B)

Blue Devils get offensive in decisive win

A season built on strong team unity and an aggressive, yet productive approach at the plate paid dividends in spades for the Water Valley Blue Devils in Monday night’s decisive Class 3A North Half title series with Booneville. (more…) (May 18, 2010, Page 8)

Complete game effort lifts WVHS to win

If there was ever a time for senior pitcher Shanquayle Jenkins to record his best outing of the season, it was in Saturday’s must-win Class 3A North Half playoff game against Booneville.

Jenkins logged a complete-game effort in Water Valley’s 8-1 win over the visiting Blue Devils, who will now host the deciding third game of the series tonight at 6 at Harold T. White Field. (May 17, 2010, Page 3B)

Booneville edges WVHS in series opener

In Thursday night’s Class 3A North Half showdown between the Blue Devils of Water Valley and Booneville, it wasn’t a string of towering home runs, but a series of perfectly placed taps that made the difference.

Following back-to-back bunt singles that were perfectly placed on either side of the pitcher’s mound to load the bases in the bottom of the seventh, eighth grade catcher Andrew Lambert lofted a ball just out of the infield.

The flare scored Jeiron Jones before the ball had even landed in shallow right field, giving Booneville a 5-4 victory at Harold T. White Field. (May 14, 2010, Page 6A)

Clean sweep: WVHS headed to North Half

Two of the most complete games of the season have propelled the Water Valley Blue Devils back into the North Half title series.

The Blue Devils polished off the Corinth Warriors in two games in the second round of the Class 3A playoffs to set up a matchup with another set of Blue Devils — Booneville — for the right to advance on to Trustmark Park for the 3A title series next week. WVHS (20-6 overall) defeated the Warriors 5-3 on Friday and 11-6 on Saturday to capture their fifth straight win and seventh in the last eight games. (May 10, 2010, Page 3B)

Blue Devils open 3A playoffs with a win

Bittersweet was the word used by Water Valley coach Doug Robbins to describe his Blue Devils’ 5-3 win over Independence in their first game of Class 3A best-of-three playoff series Thursday night.

The Blue Devils (18-6 overall) used a solid, if not spectacular, pitching performance by Josh Johnson to hold the Wildcats at bay long enough for their offense to score the bulk of their runs late. (April 30, 2010, Page 7A)

Extra prep baseball information

SPORTS EDITOR BLOG — There were a couple of games I had to pull out of my article involving Water Valley and Lafayette in today’s paper. So in the attempt to get that information in somewhere, I have included all the details here in the blog. (more…) (April 12, 2010)