Chattanooga Christian’s John Alston is late on the tag as Signal Mountain’s Seth Wicker arrives at second in the bottom of the fifth inning in Wednesday’s District 7AA Championship game at Signal Mountain. Signal Mountain gave coach Josh Gandy his first district baseball championship last week, finishing 11-1 in District 7-AA, and the Eagles made it a sweep by securing the tournament championship Wednesday with a 5-3 victory over Chattanooga Christian.
Both teams advance to Monday’s region semifinals. Signal will host Central Magnet while the Chargers will travel to Upperman.
In giving Gandy his first district double, the Eagles turned to Jackson Etter, who had spent all but one game as the team’s closer and third baseman. Although he allowed three earned runs, he gave the Eagles a complete game with nine strikeouts and came up with some of those Ks in crucial situations.
He found out Monday that he would start on the mound Wednesday night.
“Coach said he told me he wanted me to start tonight, that I could go out there and throw my heart out,” Etter said.
He had a few rough patches. In the second inning, he allowed CCS to close within 2-1 on a Chris Kray single and Amos Corbett’s double. He got the first two outs in the fifth before Justin Wheeler singled, stole second and came around on Brandon Mason’s double.
Again in the sixth Etter got the first two outs before Matthew Mercer singled and scored on Corbett’s second hit of the game. There were two outs in the seventh – with Signal leading 5-3 – and he again got two outs, although this time there were two Chargers aboard. He ended the game with his final strikeout.
“I told them I wanted to keep going, that I had it in me,” Etter said.
He wound up throwing 110 pitches.
“We normally have enough offense and we usually hit pretty well against this team. I thought the guys swung the bats pretty well when we needed to,” he added.
CCS outhit the Eagles 8-5 but also had three errors – two in Signal’s first at-bat. After Jake Carmichael led off with a double after seeing seven pitches, Etter sacrificed but was ruled safe on an errant throw. Garrett Hensley then followed with an RBI.
The Eagles loaded the bases with no outs when Drew Lowry lined into a triple play.
“That triple play killed the rally,” Gandy said. “The game could’ve gotten out of hand right there, and then all of a sudden the momentum shifts back to them.”
Clinging to a precarious 2-1 lead, the Eagles plated two runs, the big one coming on a suicide squeeze bunt off the bat of Briston Reese. They added one run in the fifth when Garland Wood, a courtesy runner for Hensley, advanced to third on Grant Galbraith’s double and then raced home on a passed ball.
Gandy, whose nerves woke him up at 3 Wednesday morning and kept him from going back to sleep, never really relaxed until Etter’s final strikeout.
“CCS is a great team. They have good players all over the place and they’re well-coached. They don’t quit. They’re going to come out and compete on every pitch,” he said.
Contact Ward Gossett at wgossett@timesfreepress.com or 423-886-4765. Follow him at Twitter.com/wardgossett.