ATLANTA — The word in baseball circles around Georgia in recent seasons was that, while the Calhoun Yellow Jackets were talented and well coached, they had a certain softness that came into play during the postseason. In other words, get them down and they stay there.
Those notions were quelched Monday as the Jackets rallied twice to sweep defending Class AA champion Lovett in the GHSA Class AA semifinals, 7-4 and 8-7 in nine innings.
The Jackets, now 33-0, will get a shot at their third state title since 2000 Friday when they play at Cook County in a best-of-three series. Cook, located in Adel, swept Blessed Trinity on Monday.
Calhoun rallied from a 4-1 deficit with three runs in each of the sixth and seventh innings in game one, then outdid itself in game two by coming from a 7-1 hole to win it. The series-clincher came on Jordan Poole’s bad-hop single to left-center field.
“Today really showed everyone that we won’t give up, that once we fall behind we’re going to battle,” said Carter Harrison, the winning pitcher in game one. “That’s one of the differences with this team than in the past. Once we got down back then, we stayed down. Today we fought, and it showed a lot of people we’re not as soft as they think we are.”