Glenbrook claims first state championship in baseball
By Gary
Harris (Special to Southern Sports & Travel)
The Glenbrook Apache baseball team
captured their first ever state championship in baseball on Monday, defeating
Winona Christian 9-3 on the road in the third and final game. Under the guidance of third year head coach
Jonathan Hardy, the Apaches garnered the hardware after being forced into a
third game by the host Stars after Winona Christian won game two of the series
8-2.
Glenbrook (28-6) claimed game one of the
best two of three series at home in Minden 4-3.
In the finale, WCS sent their ace, Brady Chambley out to the hill. Chambley, a tall lefty who came into the game
with a 12-2 record shut out the Apaches in the first two innings. Winona would take a 2-0 lead into the top
half of the third inning courtesy of two unearned runs. WCS shortstop C.J. Hodges reached on an error
with two out in the bottom of the first and would come around to get the game’s
first run thanks to a double off the bat of Chambley. The Stars stretched their lead out to 2-0 in
the second after Miles Jackson lead off the inning with a single and came
around to score on a couple of Apache errors.
But Glenbrook would take the lead for
good in the third. Spencer White drew a
walk to start the inning and Logan Clark singled to move him over to third. Jacob White executed a successful sacrifice
bunt to move the runners score his brother, Spencer. Conner Copeland would later add a two run
double to push the Apaches out to a 4-2 lead.
Glenbrook added a run in the fourth
after Logan Clark drew a walk, stole second and scored on an error by the Stars
catcher. The Apaches tacked on three
more runs in the fifth to take a sizeable 8-2 lead. Chambley suffered some wildness in the top of
the inning as three Apaches drew bases on balls. Cameron Mathews would cross the plate via a
balk and Jacob White would get his second and third RBI of the game with a 2
run single to plate Caleb Wilson and Spencer White.
Winona Christian would get their third
and final run in the fifth as Aaron Gatlin walked and scored on an RBI single
by Chambley. That would be all of the
scoring for the Stars. Glenbrook added an
insurance run in the seventh as Cameron Mathews walked and moved to third on a
double by Caleb Wilson. Mathews would
later score on a dropped strike throw down to first base to give the Apaches
the final margin.
Spencer White picked up the win to end
the season 9-2 on the year. Brady
Chambley took the loss for Winona Christian to end the year 12-3, with two of
the losses to Glenbrook.
Q&A
with Apache Head Coach Jonathan Hardy
Q: Now that you’ve had some time to reflect,
what is going to be the lasting memory you’ll take away from this season?
JH: Mainly that hard work does pay off. We learned throughout the season that you’re
never truly out of the game if your guys believe and have hope that they can
come back. Obviously, these kids winning
the school’s first ever MAIS state championship in baseball is something I’ll
remember.
Q: The third game of the Riverfield series in
the second round could have easily gone either way. Your team pulled out an 11-10 win after
losing a 10-2 lead. Was that the turning
point for your team?
JH: I would say yes. We had to go over to their place and win two
elimination games after having lost the first one at home. To be able to win that series in extra
innings made our team grow up very quickly and gave us something to draw back
on as we went into the next rounds. Both
of the next two series, we went three games and had to win tough elimination
games on the road. We talked about that
series with Riverfield a lot in the final two rounds. It seemed like a light turned on for us and
our confidence grew from that.
Q: You had two seniors (Austin Palmier and
Caydan Maloney), but this was a relatively young team. You got great contributions from several
freshmen. Talk about the mix of young
inexperienced players and older, more experienced players and what that meant
in putting this championship team together.
JH: We had to replace six to seven starters from
last year’s team and I was very pleased with how our seniors, who were new to
Glenbrook, and our younger kids stepped up and matured quickly considering that
they didn’t have a lot of game experience.
This group of kids matured a lot quicker than I thought they would. Everything just seemed to click for us toward
the end of the season.
Q: So you’re saying that this team exceeded your
expectations for this year?
JH:
I felt like we would have a good solid team this year. I didn’t know if we were experienced enough
to win a state championship, but I knew that we could definitely put ourselves
in a position to win it if we could get some breaks to go our way. We grew up very quickly and it just seemed
like guys who were 9th and 10th graders started playing
like juniors and seniors.
Q: You had a lot of your family in Winona to
witness this championship. Your father
is a former baseball coach and your brother, Brian is a successful baseball
coach at Germantown HS in Madison, MS.
How special was it to have them there and what did it mean to you?
JH: A lot of the lessons I’ve learned about the
game have come from my father. I can
remember being six and seven years old as a manager for some of his teams and
just being able to see him in action and his philosophies and his approach to
certain situations that happen daily in baseball molded my own philosophies
about the game. When my brother Brian
was an assistant coach at Madison Central, I was able to be there when they won
a state championship under Gregg Perry.
So it was good to have him there and for us to be able to see each
other’s success.
Q: Any final comments?
JH: I feel like we have a great future ahead of
us here at Glenbrook. I have had a great
coaching staff to work with this year (Greg Clark, Mark White, Matt Edwards,
Hunter Cavalier) and I’m thankful for all the hard work and support I got from
these guys. There’s not much time to
rest, because we’re already starting our plans for summer baseball and getting
ready for next year.
