Annual pilgrimage to Sulphur
Photo by Josh McDaniel
Choudrant’s Colton Smith attempts to slide under the tag of Hicks catcher Aiden Coffman during the fourth inning of Thursday’s Division V Non-select quarterfinal playoff game. Smith was called out on the play, but Choudrant won the game 2-1 to advance to the state tournament in Sulphur.
The title defense continues.
After being locked in another pitchers duel, this time against No. 8 Hicks in the Division V Non-select quarterfinals Thursday, No. 1 Choudrant’s championship DNA rose to the occasion and put together a 2-1 walk- off win to advance to the LHSAA state semifinals for the third year in a row.
Choudrant head coach Joel Antley knew his group would have accepted nothing less than a chance to defend their consecutive state titles. Now, they’re another step closer to history.
With the late-inning victory, Choudrant will take on No. 5 Anacoco in the Division V Non-select state semifinals Tuesday at 11 a.m. at Sulphur’s McMurry Park.
“The expectation has been set here, way before I got here, that the goal every year is to win a state championship,” Antley said postgame. “Obviously, you can’t do it every year, but that’s the goal. We don’t set the goal for anything less. With these guys, we wouldn’t have to set the goal anyway. That is their goal. That was a fantastic ballgame. No other way to look at it.”
Bottom of the seventh, tied 1-1, with the winning run at second base, Choudrant junior Michael Jones knew he had a job to do.
He delivered. On an 0- 1 count, Jones lunged forward to at least make contact with his bat, sending a soft dribbler in the grass to Hicks third baseman Micah Merchant to force him to charge the ball and come up quick with the throw if he wanted to beat Jones to the bag.
Merchant bobbled the exchange from the glove to his hand and overshot his first baseman on the throw, allowing senior Bryce McGuire to round third and head home to walk it off, sending Aggie fans into a frenzy.
“I just knew I couldn’t strike out,” Jones said. “I knew if I put the ball in play and make them make a play or at least move the runners over, I knew the next batter behind me was going to do something.”
McGuire, the winning run, book-ended his night with thrilling plays as the Aggies needed someone to steady the waters after another quiet night at the plate.
Taking the mound once again as Choudrant’s starting pitcher, McGuire wasted no time setting the tone for the game ahead. The senior tossed an immaculate inning – nine total pitches, and with three strikeouts no less.
“You can’t get a better start than that,” Antley said of McGuire’s immaculate inning. “I don’t know that I have seen it. Period.”
He’d finish his night pitching 4 innings, allowing 3 hits and 1 earned run while striking out 6 batters.
As McGuire fired his dugout up after fanning the final batter of the first, Jones knew the Aggies’ ace was going to deliver another gem. It was up to them to stay patient and know they were never going to be out of the fight with McGuire or fellow senior Landon Hennen on the bump.
“We knew we were going to get back in it,” Jones said. “We have two of the best pitchers in the state up here and we knew they were going to keep us in it.”
Hennen’s relief work was needed once again, as Hicks took an initial 1-0 lead while McGuire was still in off two singles in the fourth inning.
But the senior didn’t give the Pirates another inch of daylight, striking out 5 batters in his 3 innings of work. Even when Hicks attempted to threaten in the sixth with runners on first and second with one out, Hennen struck out two batters and induced a groundout to close the door on the Pirates’ final rally effort.
Choudrant eventually tied the game at 1- 1 on an RBI single from Jones in the fifth inning after the Aggies loaded the bases, bringing home McGuire from third.
Gavin Murphy, the Aggies’ senior catcher, knew it was later than the team was hoping for, but a win counts all the same at this stage in the season, as he finished 2-for-3 at the plate to lead Choudrant.
With championship experience across the lineup, there’s good reason for Murphy to believe the Aggies never feel like it’s ever too late in a ballgame for this team to rise to occasion.
Now, they’re taking that confidence down to Sulphur.
“We’re never out of it,” Murphy said postgame. “You gotta think, there’s five or six guys that played in the state championship last year. There’s three or four that played in it two years ago. So, we never feel like we’re out of it.”
Hennen picked up the win for Choudrant (284), which has extending its winning streak to 20 games. Hayden Doyle took the loss for Hicks, which ends its season at 16-9.
