Why Houston baseball was shocked it didn't win TSSAA state championship game vs Farragut
MURFREESBORO — Houston was stunned with the way its season ended Saturday.
As 11-time state champion Farragut (30-11-1) turned a double play to end Houston baseball’s Class 4A state championship hopes 4-1 at Oakland High School, all the Mustangs could do was stare in disbelief.
It did the hard part Saturday down three runs with three outs remaining in its season. Houston, which won titles in 1996 and 2005, was playing in its first title game appearance since 2014.
It managed to load the bases after the first batter of the inning was struck out. The Mustangs dugout, which was loud from the first pitch to last, gave each batter that stepped up to the plate hope.
First Robinson Martin had a single up the middle. Then Tyler Yearwood hit a double down the third base line. Then Connor Weaks was walked.
All Houston needed was a chance. Just as Farragut unloaded the bases in the top of the seventh with a three-RBI double, Houston knew it had enough to attempt the same.
But when the bat was swung, instead of runs coming across the plate, it was the Farragut shortstop finding his second baseman then the first baseman. Instead of yelps and cheers and celebrations from the Houston dugout, it was shock.
In two quick throws the season was over. Just like that.
"It just wasn’t meant to be,” Houston coach Lane McCarter said. “We did as much as we could do. Just one pitch here, one pitch there just kind of defined the whole season.”
While that one play determined how the season ended, to say it defined the whole season, isn’t necessarily true.
Houston (38-9) found itself plenty of times getting the hits it needed for either separation or extending its lead. When it went down one run in the championship game, not a single player was discouraged. And as usual, it was sophomore Donovan Mitchell who had the big hit up the middle to score Ryan Bland and tie the game at 1.
It was another example of the maturity McCarter spoke so candidly about. The Mustangs didn’t get over-aggressive, even when they finally started getting hits. And they didn’t get rattled when Farragut jumped out to a three-run lead.
Instead, they focused on each at bat, slowly finding a way to save its season. That’s what will make losing on Saturday tough. It’s also what should motivate a team that will return most of its starters next season.
“If it doesn’t make you hungrier in the offseason,” McCarter said. “Then you’re probably not the competitive person you think you are.”
The Mustangs will replay that last at bat over and over. Maybe if they let that last pitch go by the game changes. And a three-and-a-half-hour bus ride back to Germantown will give them plenty of time to think of all the outcomes that could have happened Saturday.
In the end, the only outcome was a frustrated walk out of the stadium as a team with championship aspirations fell one game short. McCarter has no doubt his Mustangs will be contending for another state championship real soon.
“We always see ourselves in a position to win a state championship,” he said. “This is my 23rd year and I think we got a chance every year to win it and I’m not kidding myself either. We got talent in our school each and every year and we’ll try to keep building this thing.”
Reach Wynston Wilcox at wwilcox@gannett.com and on Twitter @wynstonw__.
This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Houston baseball shocked it didn't win TSSAA state championship game
