Blessed Trinity, down to its last strike, rallied to score three times in the seventh inning to send the Class 4A championship game to extra innings and brought home the title with a two-out rally in the eighth.
The result was a 7-6 win over Cartersville, giving the Titans the best-of-three series on Thursday at Coolray Field and earning the program its fourth overall championship and first title since 2015.
“We’ve had our back against the wall in many games this year,” said coach Jamie Wagner, whose team finished 32-9. “We call it the road. It’s how we got here. We tried to put ourselves in as many difficult situations as possible against some top caliber teams, so when we got in this situation, we felt good about it.”
Cartersville (32-10) lost in the championship series for the second straight year.
Credit: Stan Awtrey
Credit: Stan Awtrey
Blessed Trinity entered its last at-bat trailing 6-3. The Titans scored a run on Aiden Zagryn’s sacrifice fly and loaded the bases with two outs. Third baseman Kade Kisz said only two words shot through his mind at the time when he stepped to the plate.
“Keep fighting,” Kisz said. “The motto going into this whole game was just keep fighting.”
On the next pitch, Kisz shot a single into left field that drove in two runs and sent the game to extra innings.
The Titans won it in the eighth inning with a rally that began with two outs. Quinn Davis singled and went to second on a throwing error. Terrance Bowen, who has two hits and two RBI, was intentionally walked to set up a force.
Carson Zagryn took a strike and singled to left field to score Davis with the winning run.
“The first pitch of the at-bat I was out in front, so I took a step out and had a little chat with my twin brother right behind me,” Zagryn said. “He just told me, ‘Hey, man, this is you. This is your time. There’s nobody else I’d want at the plate.’ And I stepped in the box with full confidence, got a pitch I could handle and drove it to the left side.”
In the top of the inning, it was Zagryn, the second baseman, who fielded a ground ball and nailed the go-ahead runner at the plate.
“We can’t talk about the bottom of the eighth until we talk about the top of the eighth,” Wagner said. “That play he made with the bases load to throw to our ninth-grade catcher (Gavin Greene) from his knee … that would have been the go-ahead run. So, Carson Zagryn did it in the top and bottom for us.”
Credit: Stan Awtrey
Credit: Stan Awtrey
The winning pitcher was Brayden Loquasto, who worked the final 2 1/3 innings in relief of sophomore starter Aiden Pack. Cartersville’s Logan Shrewsbury pitched the final 1 2/3 innings and took the loss on an unearned run.
Cartersville broke through with four runs in the fifth inning thanks to a couple of big hits and a pair of costly errors. The Purple Hurricanes loaded the bases, and Nolan Elrod hit a sacrifice fly to shallow left to score Cam Cochran, but the relay was intercepted and turned in time to catch the runner straying at second base.
Cartersville followed with a walk and Thomas Peters lobbed an RBI single to center, scoring Brayden Logan. This time the center fielder unwisely threw wildly to third, allowing David Vargas to score. Vargas then scored on a throwing error by the third baseman.
Blessed Trinity got a pair of runs back in the bottom of the fifth on a two-run homer by Terrance Bowen. It was only the second home run in seven state championship games played at Coolray Field this spring.
But Cartersville scored single runs in the sixth and seventh and enjoyed a 6-3 lead before Blessed Trinity’s comeback.
“We just knew we had to break through,” Wagner said. “We felt like we were capable. This is a team with 33 guys – the biggest roster in BT history – and all of them just never quit. They play for each other more than anyone else.”
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