FPD turns in a complete series to erase two years of heartbreak, stops Stratford for GIAA Class AAAA state championship
By Michael A. Lough
The Sports Report
centralgasports@gmail.com
The dreams of a dogpile finally came true.
After the nightmares of the past two years against Brookstone, FPD shed that monkey of misfortune and recollections of remorse by sweeping Stratford in the GIAA Class 4A state championship series.
The Vikings focused on the dogpile after Harrison Strange got a game-ending groundout to second baseman Brady McHugh to finish off Saturday’s 9-2 clincher at J.I. Clements Stadium on the Georgia Southern campus.
FPD and its dugout full of seniors finish 34-2, while Stratford – and its dugout full of underclassmen –end the season at 23-10.
The senior up-the-middle infield duo of shortstop Keon Johnson and McHugh each had three hits for the Vikings, Johnson with three runs and McHugh with two rusn and two RBI.
Major Simmons added two hits and Wyatt Waters three RBI. Nine Vikings got a hit and six drove in a run.
Bobby Wooten and Jaxen Justice had two hits apiece for Stratford.
Strange turned in a pitching performance that won’t soon before forgotten around Ben Harden Memorial Field. The senior finished off his first and only season with the Vikings with an efficient three-strikeout, three-walk, seven-hit complete game, throwing 108 pitches.
Stratford’s Casey Von Weldner took the loss, with 5.1 innings of work.
Stratford head coach Barry Veal said going intot he series that the Eagles couldn’t just give FPD free bases, and Von Waldner and reliever Bobby Wooten teamed for only two walks.
Photo: GIAA
But the Vikings are a hitting team, and they offered a reminder. They have 14 hits in the finale and eight in Thursday’s first win.
McHugh, a multi-sport grinder headed to East Tennessee State for baseball, went 5 for 7 with five RBI in the series.
The Vikings pieced together a two-out run in the first on single, walk, and Tinsley Lewis single. The Eagles answered with a run on a one-out single, walk, groundout, and RBI single from T Johnston.
Both teams went down in order in the second, but FPD got moving in the third. Johnson singled and went to third on an errant pickoff play, then scored on Simmons’ single, McHugh following with a run-scoring double.
But Von Waldner got out of a two-on no-outs jam with no more damage.
Johnson sent a 1-1 pitch over the left-field wall in the top of the fourth for a 5-1 lead and Conner Strandmark led off the sixth with a bomb to left.
McHugh added two runs with a single to left and a run came in on Waters’ ground, putting FPD up 9-1.
Stratford, which stranded runners in six innings, pushed across a two-out run in the bottom of the seventh on Justice’s double to left, but that was it.
The Vikings won their first state title since 2010, and the Eagles were in their first championship since 2007.