Personal Narrative: Winning The State Championship

Winning the State Championship

I have been playing baseball as long as I can remember. My dream ever since I was little was to win a State Championship in high school. Baseball is the only sport that I could literally play every day and not get tired of it. I told myself that I would never give up my dream of playing baseball as long as I live.

I grew up playing in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, playing in a baseball league in Hillcrest. When I was ten years old I started playing travel ball with a team from Columbus, Mississippi. I went to public school until I was in fifth grade and then transferred in sixth grade to a private school. The school is named ACA (American Christian Academy) and I went there because I knew that they had a very successful baseball program. I knew going there could help me get looked at by colleges because of their good reputation of

having great players in the past.
I played my seventh grade year on the middle school team and started at shortstop. I had a pretty good year and I could tell that the varsity coach really liked me. The start of my eighth grade year, we had a great team and I knew that we won make a run in the city county tournament. We ended up losing in the championship game to TMS (Tuscaloosa Middle School).
After the middle school season was over, I got a call from Coach Moore who is the head varsity baseball coach.

He asked me, “Do you want to join the varsity team for the playoffs?” Without hesitation I said, “Of course coach.” I started practicing with them and couldn’t wait for this great opportunity to play on varsity in eighth grade. There are a total of five rounds in a high school playoff and the fifth round of course being the state championship, and to win a series you have to win two out of three games. Coach said, “You’re being called up to be a pitch runner for the pitcher and catcher during the games if they reached base.” I said, “Sounds good coach, thanks for the opportunity.” The first three rounds were pretty easy and then we had to play Mars Hill and they were really good. They had two great pitchers, one was going to Alabama and the other was going to Mississippi State. We won the first game and ended up winning the second game on a walk-off homerun to send us to the state championship game. I could not believe that this was happening. I have been dreaming of this ever since I was a little

kid.
On the way down to Montgomery, Alabama, where the state championship is held I could barely sit still. We were playing at River walk Stadium, home of the Montgomery Biscuits, a Double-A team that feeds into the Tampa Bay Rays. We checked into the hotel on a Thursday, and then we went out to eat as a team. The next day the game was at ten o’clock, so we went and grabbed some breakfast before the game. It was finally game time and we were playing Leroy.
Nothing went according to plan the first game. Leroy came out smashing the ball and beat us 10-0 in five innings. This put a lot of pressure on us as a team because losing the first game meant we had to win the next two. It was time for the next game and we played a great game and came out with a victory. All we had to do was win one more game. I was so excited for this next game. We had an hour break and it was time to play the game to decide the state winner. We trailed the whole entire game, the score was 11-6 in Leroy’s favor. It was the last inning and we were still down 11-6. We never stopped fighting, we battled back and the score was 11-10 with two outs. I was the go ahead run at first, and the tying run was on third. Will Hollyhand was pinch hitting for Stephen Joy. Will worked the count to 3-2. This situation is something that you only see in movies, it couldn’t have been written up better than this. It was a 3-2 count, two outs, and bottom of the seventh inning in the state championship game. I had to steal because of the count, something was going to happen. The pitch came and I looked up and I saw the ball hit Will’s bat and go into centerfield, I knew the ball had a chance to get down. I was about to touch second base and noticed that the ball had hit off the centerfielder’s glove. I now was only focused on one thing, which was getting across that plate. I was running towards third, my coach was jumping up and down waving me home. I rounded third and everybody was jumping up and down going crazy. I slid across home to win the state championship. They all dogpiled on me and I couldn’t believe that this was happening. It was a dream come true.