Sports

DWS out to get monkey off its back

• Deerfield-Windsor has been eliminated in the second round each of the past two years, but hopes to bust the trend with some home-cookin’ today.

Paul Dehner Jr.

ALBANY — It’s known as “The Bump.”

Not the funky mid-70s dance craze. Not the first sign of celebrity pregnancy.

Around the Deerfield-Windsor baseball team, it’s one of the reasons it believes it can break a two-year trend of second-round exits.

“It’s ‘The Bump,’ baby,” DWS catcher Culin Brown said of the nickname for the Knights’ home field, where they will host George Walton in the second round of the playoffs today and Friday at 2 p.m. “Bounces around first base are crazy. You hit it in the outfield it is open game for anybody. I think we know how to play it pretty well and definitely have the advantage.”

A combination of bumpy ground, short porches and brickdust infield make the DWS home a unique park for incoming competition.

And thanks to an 18-1 regular season, Region 1-AAA title and first-round sweep of Augusta Prep, the Knights won’t have to leave it throughout the playoffs.

Nobody around the Deerfield program needs be reminded of the importance of staying at home. The last two seasons the Knights were eliminated in the second round — on the road.

In 2006, they lost at eventual champion North Cobb Christian. Last season, Stratford rode a second-round victory against Deerfield to its own state championship.

“It’s definitely in the back of your mind,” said Justin Lott, who will be the starting pitcher in today’s Game 1. “We have been put out in the second round the past two years. I won’t call it a curse, but we got to go out and play.”

They will play a George Walton (21-8) team that finished second in Region 1-AAA and swept past Mount de Sales in the first round.

The two teams haven’t met up in the regular season and the only common opponent is Westfield. DWS swept that team and George Walton easily won a five-inning game cut short by rain.

“They are a bunch of free-swingers,” first-year Deerfield coach Rod Murray said of his scouting report on George Walton. “They see a pitch they like and they will go for it early in the count. They have some good-looking kids. We feel like we have two good teams going at each other.”

Murray says beyond Lott starting the opener, his rotation is “situational.”

The Knights will rely on what has been an opportunistic offense that scored 31 runs in the first round.

After that, they realize it will come down to whoever executes better — and just maybe, a few lucky bumps.

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