After combined 16 innings in 12-hour day, Briarcrest baseball wins 1st state title

MURFREESBORO — They drove from Eads, outside of Memphis, with the shirts already made.

They kept them packed while Briarcrest began the TSSAA Class 2A state tournament with wins over CPA and Baylor. They brought them out Thursday afternoon, when Briarcrest and Christian Brothers — two teams located 15 minutes away from each other in West Tennessee — drove halfway across the state to decide the state champion at Reese Smith Jr. field.

They wore them for more than 12 hours, waiting through two weather delays to see if the definitive statement on the back of the shirts would actually be true by the time they drove back west.

And then, 56 minutes after midnight on Friday morning, they erupted in cheers as the players celebrated the first baseball state championship in Saints history in a roller-coaster 12-11 win in nine innings.

On the back of the shirts were five words: "Briarcrest is a baseball school."

The Saints players were in a dogpile near the edge of the infield, and no one was arguing with the sentiment.

The idea for the shirts came from a group of Briarcrest dads who call themselves the "PR society," and it wasn't a coincidence that they brought them out for the game against Christian Brothers. The idea that Briarcrest wasn't a baseball school is something they took personal offense to, especially because they've lost players to neighboring schools — like Christian Brothers — for that reason.

"We all support each other," coach Craig Hopkins said. "And I'm very proud of our school for that. We're a close-knit school. We pull for each other in every sport."

The road to get to that moment was anything but straightforward. First, the start of Thursday's first game, originally scheduled for 12:30 p.m., was pushed back an hour. Then there was a lightning delay that lasted 3½ hours. When the teams finally started playing, it was a pitchers' duel deadlocked at 0-0 for four innings before Christian Brothers finally reeled off a four-run fifth inning.

Then there was another weather delay, this time because of rain. That lasted more than an hour before the teams returned to the field, and Christian Brothers quickly finished off the 4-0 win.

Game 2 started at 9:10 p.m. and Briarcrest had complete control within minutes. The Saints scored eight runs in the first inning and looked like they were going to cruise to a win.

But the Purple Wave wouldn't quit. They scored four runs in the fifth, then added two in the sixth and one in the seventh to force extra innings. Briarcrest didn't score in the top of the eighth, and Christian Brothers had all of the momentum.

The Purple Wave had a runner in scoring position after Halton Donnelly was hit by a pitch and advanced to second on a wild pitch. Carson Finch singled to center, and Donnelly rounded third and headed for home. They were seconds — inches — away from winning the state title.

In right field, Caleb Cowles scooped up the ball. In the dugout, Hopkins was worried that the wet field conditions would mean the ball slipped out of his hand.

"I knew I was going to have to throw it as hard as I could," Cowles said. "I'm hoping it takes the perfect bounce. And it took the great bounce."

The catcher was Brayden Holland, a freshman who had started the game only because injuries in the first game with Christian Brothers necessitated lineup changes, so all eyes were on him in the season's most important play.

"It was a lot of things going through my mind at that point," Hopkins said.

Holland snagged it, pivoted and tagged Donnelly as he was getting into his slide. For a few moments, both the Briarcrest and Christian Brothers fans were silent. And then umpire Vince Lanius said it, emphatically: "Out!"

"It was one of those things where you just feel it," Holland said.

If Briarcrest is a baseball school, that play is its defining moment.

"I'll remember that my whole life," Cowles said.

Then the Saints took control of the game. Brennan Bomar reached base on an error and scored after a single from Luke McGee. That was all it took — Bomar pitched the final three innings and earned the win after a flyout ended the game and led to the dogpile near second base.

It was then that the emotion truly came out, when the heavyweight fight had finally come to an end after 16 innings and more than 12 hours. Christian Brothers had won three straight elimination games, then overcame an 8-0 deficit to come about as close as you can come to winning a title without actually winning one. There were tears on both sides — no one will soon forget what those two teams did here yesterday and today.

And as the fans streamed on to the field after 1 a.m., there was no one in Murfreesboro or anywhere in Tennessee to dispute the five words on the back of those shirts.

Reach sports writer Jonah Dylan at jonah.dylan@commercialappeal.com or on X @thejonahdylan.

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: TSSAA playoffs: Briarcrest baseball wins first state title