Under new coach, Asheboro's baseball team opens up 2-0

ASHEBORO — First-year Asheboro High School baseball coach Jamey May said he’s been impressed with what he’s seen early on with his Blue Comets team.

AHS, which has a very busy schedule this week with games against Wheatmore, Bishop McGuinness and Southwestern Randolph, was off to a 2-0 start after an 8-2 win over East Davidson and a 7-3 victory over Trinity last week.

May is hoping to rebuild a program that was once elite. AHS has had just two winning seasons in the past eight years, finishing 13-12 overall in 2023 and 13-3 in 2021. The Blue Comets are coming off two consecutive seasons of nine wins.

“What I want out of these guys is to compete and I want these guys to understand what winning looks like and that’s hard work,” said May, who coached at Walkertown and Atkins before coming to Asheboro. “That’s what we did all off-season, work hard. I want them to be tough and right now they are competing and being tough.”

An off-season that stressed effort, attention to detail and attitude has led to a couple of early-season wins. Price Kidd went the distance on the mound in the opener and Gavin Allen went the distance in the win over the Bulldogs last Friday night at McCrary Park.

“It makes it pretty easy when you have two complete games,” May said. “These guys are conditioned to do that. We had an eight-week throwing program we did before and they were able to continue that through the snow with indoor work and things like that. They are conditioned.

“Now, I don’t love throwing my guys 90 pitches in the first week of the season. That’s not what I want to do, but these guys earned it.”

A seven-run first inning, which featured a three-run triple by Grayson Norman and four Trinity errors, was enough for Allen in the win over the Bulldogs (1-1). Allen surrendered nine hits. Justin Guerrero had two of the Blue Comets’ three hits in the contest.

May said look for Shane Immel, Sam Gore and Norman to help carry the offense along with Guerrero, Nolan Shaw, Gabriel Jaimes and Daniel Jaimes.

Both Jaimes will see action on the mound as will Gore, Shaw, Norman, Kidd and Allen.

May has put together a tough non-league schedule to prepare his team for the first Triad Area Athletic Conference season. AHS will meet three-time defending state champion Uwharrie Charter twice, perennial power Randleman, Southern Alamance, Southwestern Randolph and Westchester Country Day.

“I want to see the best competition we can see,” May said. “That team (Trinity) has a great program. I want to see teams like that. I want to see talented teams so we can be prepared for the conference. Now it doesn’t matter if you win your conference or not with RPI to get into the playoffs, but I want to win the conference.”

May said his coaching philosophy has always been to put pressure on the defense and that was quite evident in the win over the Bulldogs. The Blue Comets put the ball in play enough to watch THS commit six errors, including four in the big first inning.

“Hit the ball on the ground and make them make mistakes,” May said. “Put pressure on them. No surprise. I’m not hiding anything. We steal a lot, bunt a lot, move runners over. That’s what we do. We put the ball in play and run on people.”

May doesn’t have a specific number of wins he would like to see his team collect this season, but there are other non-negotiable aspects of the game he demands.

“I expect these guys to work hard, have good effort, attention to details and have good attitudes and that will take them pretty far,” May said. “They are loud, intense and they want it bad. They want Asheboro baseball to be back just as much as I do.”