Alex Love
Blue Ridge players pile on each other in celebration of winning Region II-AAA championship.
Alex Love
The championship was Senior Night for – Colton Henderson, Ethan Few, Jacob Wilbanks and John Coker – Blue Ridge players for the Class of 2016.
Alex Love
Blue Ridge Head Baseball Coach Travis Henson praises his team for their accomplishment.
Alex Love
For the record, a team picture of Blue Ridge coaches and players with their 2016 Peach Blossom Region Championship T-shirts.
It also set up a first-round home playoff game as the No. 1 seed vs. No. 4 seed Richland Northeast, April 29 at 6:30 p.m.
“It feels so great, I’m just so proud of the guys,” Head Coach Travis Henson said. “They made this happen. As a coach all you do is work hard to push your kids to win, but they’re the ones who make the plays, work so hard and they deserve it.”
The championship was Senior Night for – Colton Henderson, Ethan Few, Jacob Wilbanks and John Coker – Blue Ridge players for the Class of 2016.
“It doesn’t get any better than this,” Coker said. “Glory to God and thank God for my defense. We had a lot of games we looked forward to and now we just got to do what we’ve got to do.”
Coker had seven strikeouts while pitching the complete game shutout.
“Greer is a good offensive team. I just had to do my best to keep them off balance and do what I do best,” Coker said.
“For John to do all that, he went and did a great job just like he did at Eastside and he came in here tonight to shutout Greer,” Henson said. “That’s a story book memory right there.”
Henson said, “I told the guys all week you’ve got a chance to play in a regional championship for the first time in a decade at home against a cross-town rival on Senior Night for your 16th straight win. You see movies about that kind of thing.”
The Tigers started their lead early in the bottom of the first scoring two runs than two more runs in the bottom of the fifth and sixth.
Few, Wilbanks, Blake Cannon and Zach Wadell batted the runs.
Coker said after celebrating the victory the focus turns to the playoffs.
“We’ve just got to wake up with a new, good mentality and know that next week is our biggest game,” Coker said. “We need to work on everything, defense and offense. Were still not the best we can be right now,” he said.
“Richland Northeast is a great team out of a tough region,” Henson said. “They’re well managed and well coached, so it’s going to be a great challenge. But these guys have been up for it all year because of two words on the backs of our jerseys stay hungry.”