MURFREESBORO, Tenn. — It's a moment no Briarcrest Saint will soon forget: the first state championship in baseball program history.
“It wasn’t just like this team just did it, it took years to be in the mix and to finally get here and finally do it, so I'm very grateful," Briarcrest Head Coach Craig Hopkins said.
The Saints knocked off fellow Memphis team Christian Brothers 12-11 in extra innings.
Considering it took so many years to finally hoist the state title trophy, it was only fitting that the game itself would last more than 12 hours.
Christian Brothers and Briarcrest were scheduled to take the field at 12.30 p.m. on Thursday. That game got pushed back to 1.30 p.m. due to the game before running long and then eventually back to 5 p.m. due to a lightning delay.
The Brothers had to win the first game to even have a chance at state. After four scoreless innings, the Purple Wave scored four runs in the fifth. Then there was another hour plus rain delay before the game resumed and the Brothers won 4-0 to force a final, deciding game.
The second game started after 9 p.m., and the Saints came out swinging, putting up eight runs in the top of the first and eventually taking a 10-2 lead after three innings.
But the Brothers had no plans on letting their neighbors cruise to a State Title victory. Instead, they tied it up in the bottom of the seventh at 11 runs to force the game into extra innings.
“I felt like a proud father out there," Christian Brothers head coach Jason Motte said. "Just watching them get to this point with all the ups and downs we had this season and then to come out in the championship game and be down 8-0 and fight and claw.”
The Brothers had a chance to win it in the eighth but a superb throw into home from Caleb Cowles to freshman catcher Brayden Holland snuffed out any chances of that.
"Boy, what a catch and tag he made. He made that look a lot easier than it was," Hopkins said.
Then, in the ninth, after not scoring for four straight innings, Luke McGee brought in a run to give the Saints a 12-11 lead that would end up proving the game-winning run just before 1 a.m. on Friday morning.
“Our team was definitely down; we’d kind of lost momentum," McGee said. "I’ve been to Briarcrest since kindergarten. I've done everything my whole life to be here. I've played baseball my whole life, and this is what it’s all about.”