Down to its last two outs, the Loganville baseball team could only recall the message senior Jake Boland had delivered to the team in the tunnel before the Class 5A championship game restarted after a three-hour rain delay.
“Let’s go get us a ring,” Boland said.
The Red Devils (36-5) delivered on the challenge, scoring three times in the bottom of the seventh inning to take a 4-3 walk-off victory over Pope (37-4) at Gwinnett Field in the best-of-three series. It was the third state championship in four seasons for Loganville’s exiting senior class and the ninth title in school history.
Credit: Miguel Martinez/AJC
Credit: Miguel Martinez/AJC
“Coach (Bran Mills) told us before the season that we were the worst senior class,” second baseman Brantley Carter said with a laugh.
But such motivational thoughts were long forgotten by the time the final rally began.
After Zac Cuneio flied out to start the last inning, Pope pitcher Jensen Morneau lost the strike zone. Aiden Gorvett tripled — Loganville’s only extra-base hit in the championship series — and scored on a wild pitch. Matt Berardinelli, Dawson Allen and Kaiden Howell walked to load the bases and bring Carter to the plate.
“To be honest, I felt like we had to get Howell back to the plate,” Mills said. “I knew if we got him back up, we’d have runners on and he’s a great hitter. I knew if we got back to the top of the order we’d have a shot.”
After taking the first pitch for a strike, Carter lined a single to right field, scoring Berardinelli and pinch-runner Teyton Braswell with the game-winner. It set off a crazy celebration at 9:14 p.m., nearly 10 hours after the doubleheader started Tuesday morning, that featured Carter running around the infield with an American flag.
“I told him, there’s nobody else I’d rather have up,” Mills said. “I meant it. That was the guy I wanted up there. I just felt good about it.”
Credit: Miguel Martinez/AJC
Credit: Miguel Martinez/AJC
Carter, named the MVP of the series, said, “I’m thinking I’m about to walk this thing off. I mean, that’s the mentality I’ve got going in there. If it’s a ball, I ain’t swinging, but it was a fastball right down the middle that I hit.”
Loganville won the first game on 3-2 Monday, but rain pushed the second game to Tuesday at 11 a.m. Pope won 5-4 to force a deciding game, and the Greyhounds had a 2-1 lead entering the bottom of the fifth when the rain returned and caused play to pause for three hours.
Pope had evened the series behind starter Jacob Israel, who got the Game 2 win. Morneau earned a save.
The Greyhounds batted around in the first inning and scored four runs off starter Tripp Sapp, only to have Loganville peck away to tie the game with two runs in the second and two more in the fourth.
Pope regained the lead in the fourth inning. Parker Troughton singled and advanced on a hit batsman, and he scored on consecutive wild pitches by reliever Jeremiah Reiss.
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