Bidding for their first state baseball championship since winning back-to-back titles in 2002-03, the Marist War Eagles reached the Class 4A quarterfinals last week by upsetting second-ranked Loganville in a three-game series that went the distance.
The two teams split a pair of games last Wednesday, with Marist pulling out a 3-2 win before the host Red Devils evened things up with a convincing 11-1 victory. One day later, the War Eagles bounced back and came out on the winning end of a 6-3 decision.
Marist went on the road again this week to tangle with Alcovy for a spot in the semifinals. Interestingly, Alcovy manager Casey Bates’ first job in the high school ranks came as an assistant under current Marist coach Mike Strickland, then the head man at South Forsyth.
"Every coach I’ve talked to said they’re not going to beat themselves," Bates told the Rockdale Citizen, speaking of the War Eagles. "If you can’t beat them, you’re not going to win. They’re going to do some things to make our boys think. They’re not going to put up trick plays, but they’ll put up some offensive and defensive plays just to see how we react."
Like Marist, Redan was similarly clutch in its trip to the Class 5A baseball quarterfinals. The Raiders traveled to Jenkins in round one and scored a pair of thrilling victories, 9-7 and 12-11, to advance. Redan was on the road in the second round as well, as the Raiders recovered from a 6-1 setback in their opener to upset Northside, Warner Robins by scores of 5-2 and 8-6.
Redan played the role of visitor again this week, but results of its quarterfinal showdown at Mill Creek were not available as of press time.
LACROSSE TEAMS REACH SEMIS …
The Marist girls lacrosse team fell to eventual state champion Westminster last Tuesday in the A-4A semifinals, but not before the team survived two nail-biters. After kicking off their tournament with a 12-11 win over Sprayberry, the War Eagles held off Woodward 13-12.
"The close wins have really helped us come together as a team," senior Megan Cox told the Dunwoody Crier following the win over Woodward. "We realized it’s not going to be easy. We have to work for every game that we play. It’s showed us we can do this."
They could not quite do it on the road against a Westminster (21-1) juggernaut that blasted West Forsyth 22-9 in the championship, but the War Eagles still finished their 2010 campaign with a solid 10-6 record.
The St. Pius X boys also succumbed to eventual champion Westminster in Class A-4A semifinal competition. Following an 18-8 rout of Sprayberry and a 9-6 victory over Wesleyan, the Golden Lions fell to the Wildcats 11-5 last Wednesday. Despite the loss, it was still a banner year for St. Pius X. The semifinal appearance was the Golden Lions’ first in school history and they finished with a 13-5 record.
TRACK SEASONS CONCLUDE …
The state track meet was held last weekend at Jefferson’s Memorial Stadium, and a few DeKalb County athletes took home individual state champion honors. In Class 3A, Kendrick Parker of Druid Hills won the triple jump with a mark of 48-9. The Tucker 1600-meter relay team, which featured Cedric Colson, N’quan Maggett, Miles Harris, Seantavious Jones, Edmund Williams, and Greg Brown won first place in Class 4A with a time of 3:15.
As a team, St. Pius X finished sixth in Class 3A. The Golden Lions received standout efforts by Brendan Hoban in both the 1600-meter run (eighth place in 4:30) and 3200-meter run (sixth place in 9:46), Jonathan Porter in both the shot put (third place with 51-3) and the discus (fourth place with 151-10), and Nikita Kirilov in the pole vault (third place with 15-0).
Southwest DeKalb and Marist finished fourth and sixth, respectively, in the Class 4A overall standings. For the Panthers, Malcolm Brock led the way with a trio of stellar performances: third place in the 300-meter intermediate hurdles (39.23 seconds), second place in the high jump (6’6”), and sixth place in the triple jump (45-11.5). Marist was paced by Scott Selvey, who came in seventh in 1600-meter run (4:35) and 11th in the 3200-meter run (10:26), and by Burke McCarty, who gave the War Eagles a second-place result in the discus (184-2) and a fifth-place mark in the shot put (50-3).
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