LEBANON, Tenn. - That storybook finish McCallie had been authoring hit a shredder Wednesday night, but the authors remained alive with chapters still to be written.
The Blue Tornado rebounded from an 8-2 winners-bracket final loss to Brentwood Academy in the TSSAA Division II-AA state tournament and set up today's championship rematch with the Eagles thanks to their second tournament victory over Briarcrest Christian, 5-1, in a late-night affair at Wilson Central.
The title game is scheduled to begin at 1:30 EDT this afternoon at Middle Tennessee State's Reese Smith Jr. Field. McCallie will have to win two against the Eagles in order to earn its first baseball state title since 2014.
The Blue Tornado fell behind early in the loss to BA. To make matters worse for the Blue Tornado, they had to turn around with only a brief respite to collect themselves and play the losers-bracket final.
The Blue Tornado had shelved a season of ups and downs once postseason pitching began, bouncing first Montgomery Bell Academy and then Baylor - both in best-of-three series – to punch their ticket to state. They then beat Briarcrest to reach the winners-bracket final.
The beginning against BA was suspect at best, and the Eagles' first two runs came as a result of an errant throw to first on a dropped third strike, a hit batter, a bunt single, a wild pitch and a groundout.
"We couldn't overcome it," McCallie coach Tim Costo said before the start of the second game. "We have to deal a lot better with adversity."
While McCallie eventually got those two runs back, that adversity climaxed in the fourth, with Brentwood plating six on its way to the Blue Tornado Waterloo. Most demoralizing was that McCallie was within an out of getting through the top of the inning without giving up a run.
"That's not good, when it goes bad it goes bad, but they were hitting it pretty well," Costo said.
The doors, though, were left open and the Eagles capitalized in a big way on four singles, an error and a double.
McCallie's two runs came in the fifth and sixth innings on an RBI single by Corbin Brooksbank and a wild pitch.
In the second game, McCallie blew out to a 5-0 lead through the fourth and sailed.
Jackson Mathis got the win, giving up an earned run on a four-hitter that included 10 strikeouts and just one walk.
He also was the hit leader with a 2-for-3, two-run, one-RBI showing. J.D. Day added two hits with a pair of RBIs in four at-bats.
Contact Ward Gossett at wgossett@timesfreepress.com or 423-886-4765. Follow him on Twitter @wardgossett.