Hixson junior Landon Wallace went into Wednesday afternoon's District 6-AA baseball tournament championship round wanting to do anything he could to help his senior teammates finish their careers as district champions.
Wallace left the hero after being called on to make his second start of the season and responding with an extraordinary performance, throwing a complete game and giving up only two runs on eight hits and two walks while striking out six.
With Wallace on the mound, the Wildcats defeated Signal Mountain 5-2 in the second game of the evening at Red Bank High School to bring their third straight district title back to Hixson. The Eagles won game one 11-6 to force the decisive contest.
"I mainly just wanted to win for my seniors," Wallace said. "They've been my best buds growing up; I've known them since we were little kids. That's how everyone on the team felt."
Not only did Wallace throw 105 pitches for the complete game - his previous high was around 65 - he did it all after catching all seven innings of the first game. He was just as phenomenal at the plate Wednesday, going 4-for-8 with three runs scored, an RBI and a stolen base to lead the Wildcats' offense.
"He's been our closer for most of the season, so he's been in tough situations before," Hixson coach Colton Green said. "He just did a heck of a job. He kept them off balance, got out of a bunch of tough spots. He just went right at them and wasn't scared of them."
Signal Mountain (19-14) struck first in game two, scoring two runs on a single by Dalton Cunningham. That was where Wallace and his defense, which committed seven errors in the first game, shut the door. Wallace set down 12 of the next 15 batters, and the Wildcats only committed one error in the game.
"That first game was kind of an anomaly for us defensively," Green said. "I just told them between games that the second we left the team meeting, it's over. You can't linger on it because there's nothing they can do about it now, and they responded."
Hixson (21-14) got all the offense it would need in the third inning, scoring three runs on two singles by Wallace and Jack Julian and three costly errors by Signal Mountain.
"We kicked it around a little bit," Signal Mountain coach Josh Gandy said. "I just told my pitchers that they did a fantastic job tonight. We ended up throwing three freshmen tonight, and I thought they all responded well.
In game one, the Eagles used a seven-run fifth inning to turn a 5-4 deficit into an 11-5 lead that they would have no problem holding on to. Brayden Wilford got the win after coming on in the third inning, going five innings and only giving up two runs while striking out four batters.
The championship means Hixson will host Meigs County next Monday in the region playoffs, while Signal will travel to Sweetwater.