Trojans conquer Patriots in state championship series
John Milledge Academy defeated the Pinewood Christian Patriots in the GISA Class AAA State Baseball Championship this past Saturday in a best-of-three series.
It was a rematch of last year’s state championship in which the Patriots got the best of the Trojans. After John Milledge Academy won the first game in the 2021 series, Pinewood Christian came away victorious in both games of the double-header the day after.
All three contests in this year’s series were close, and John Milledge Academy head coach Chad Starley acknowledged how tough their opponent was.
“I thought it was one of the best, tough series I’ve ever been a part of, as a player and a coach,” Starley said. “We were fortunate enough to hold steady and trust the process, and we were able to take the victory in the last game.”
The Trojans won the first game 4-3 after being down for most of the contest, and they tied it up to send the game into extra innings.
John Milledge Academy played the second game close as well, but the Patriots had a good outing on the mound to shut out the Trojans 2-0.
After another extra-inning victory in Game 3 to finally seal the deal, Starley couldn’t help but think back to all their preparation during the regular season.
“We work super hard, and there is a lot of accountability at practice. We don’t go through the motions,” Starley said. “There’s structure, buying in to do things, and the kids work hard which is why they were able to hold steady and stay even-keel.”
Not only were the Trojans able to stay calm under pressure, but their bats always seemed to get hot at the right times.
Senior Keaton Prior was one of the main Trojan sluggers to execute timely hits and batted a whopping .490 over the course of the whole season.
However, Starley pointed out that Prior didn’t even start working on his hitting until this past offseason.
“He had never been in the hitting lineup before his senior year. Him and I started working on his hitting in August,” Starley said. “He led the team in batting average, and overall had a storybook season.”
Prior also dominated on the mound recording over 80 strikeouts and a perfect 13-0 record with a sub 2.00 ERA.
Among him and many others, the Trojans were able to battle all season. They had previously beaten the Patriots in two regular season games this year as well.
Overall, John Milledge Academy was able to repeat their 2017 State Championship performance where they defeated Trinity Christian in a three-game series.
After going to the state finals three of the last five years, Starley believes it’s the team mentality that will bring them back in the future.
“We have a lot of unselfish kids,” Starley said. “They were able to buy in to the ‘team not me’ mentality, so it was pretty impressive for me to see from this group.”