Red Bank players celebrate after the Lions defeated Livingston Academy 8-7 to advance to the state tournment.A month ago the Red Bank High School baseball team was one of the many also-rans simply playing out the string.
“I’ve got one senior and I imagine he was wondering back in early May just why he had stuck around,” coach Trey Hicks said.
The Lions entered the District 6-AA tournament seemingly ready to end a forgettable year, riding a 14-game losing streak.
Saturday, though, they yanked 2011-12 from forgettable to most memorable as they extended a fairy-tale comeback over the last two weeks with an 8-7, state tournament-clinching victory over Livington Academy. Their seventh win in eight postseason games required a late comeback, too.
The Lions went from so bad that their coach took an extra’s role in the upcoming movie “42” about Jackie Robinson’s rise to the big leagues to so hot that Hicks abruptly ended his short-lived film career because of his team’s made-for-movies comeback.