MURFREESBORO, Tenn. – McCallie’s baseball team has been of the biggest surprises at this week’s TSSAA Spring Fling.
The Blue Tornado’s odds of making a deep run in Division II-AA looked bleak when they lost star senior pitcher Austin Breedlove to injury during their second game of the postseason, a 3-2 loss to Pope John Paul II in a first-round series two weeks ago. However, a deep staff has not let its fallen ace down as juniors Grayson Smith and Olin Johnson have delivered huge performances to help spur a five-game winning streak heading into Friday’s championship round of the double-elimination state tournament at Wilson Central High School.
McCallie needs to win just one more game to be crowned champion, while its opponent will have to beat the Blue Tornado twice to secure the title. The other two teams remaining are Knoxville Catholic and Nashville’s Lipscomb Academy, who began their losers-bracket final Wednesday before it was suspended with Catholic leading 3-2 in the top of the sixth inning with a runner on third base and two outs.
With inclement weather lingering in the Murfreesboro area, the TSSAA wound up postponing all baseball and softball games Thursday, so that elimination game is now set to pick up at noon Eastern on Friday, with the championship game to follow shortly afterward.
“We have really caught a nice wave at the end of the season where everything just has come together,” Blue Tornado sixth-year head coach Tim Costo said. “We have great chemistry on the team, and our guys are playing great defense, our pitchers have been dealing and our bats have been clutch. This run has been nice because we have been the underdog all year. Nobody expected us to be where we are. We just kept preaching to be patient with the process because we are going to sneak up on some folks.”