Buffs Win First District Baseball Title In School History

Adrian Sauceman became the first West Greene baseball coach to be doused in gatorade for winning a district championship, guiding the Buffaloes to a 9-3 win over the South Greene Rebels for the District 1-2A title on Tuesday at South Greene.

“I’m soakin’ wet,” Sauceman said with a laugh. “I’m a little cold even though it’s 80 degrees here. But I’ll take that any day. I’m just proud of these guys and how they work. It’s been like that all year. They’ve put in extra time on their own.

“The older guys have led the way with that – Judson Higgins, Mason McCamey, Maddox Garber. Our juniors have led with that, too. They just work hard top to bottom. They’ve earned this and they deserve this. I’m proud of them.”

In 52 years of West Greene baseball, the Buffs had never hoisted the district tournament crown before now. Despite his best attempts, Sauceman was unable to put words to how good it felt to see this team etch its mark in school history.

“I was mowing the field today before coming over here and I started tearing up a bit,” Sauceman said. “It’s just hard to put into words right now. Three straight regionals we’ve went to, and five overall, but we’ve never won the gold plaque here and that’s just an awesome thing. They set out a goal to do that this year and it just so happens that they got it.”

West Greene’s senior core of McCamey, Higgins and Garber have been instrumental in the team’s run this season.

“It feels really great, especially to know we’ve worked really, really hard the past four years for this,” Mason McCamey said. “To finally see it pay off feels really good.”

“Our freshman year we went 3-23,” Garber said. “And the past three years, we’ve worked our hind ends off every offseason to come back and get better. Every year, we’ve progressed to get better and this is definitely the most hardworking team in the district, 100 percent.”

“Definitely a feeling we’ve never felt before, obviously,” Higgins added. “We didn’t get here by accident, it took hard work and it’s good to soak it in. It’s an honor, us three guys have seen it all. But it’s not just us, we’re a team and we pick each other up when we’re down. We got here by all of us.”

Not only did the Buffs beat a very good South Greene team to win the championship, they had to beat ol’ Mother Nature, too.

The game started on Monday before torrential rain with a side of lightning suspended the game in the bottom of the fourth inning with the Buffaloes leading 7-3.

The Rebels held a 3-1 in the top of the fourth, but the Buffaloes had pushed across six runs in the bottom of the inning before the game was halted.

Conner Campbell started the rally with a one-out RBI single, and a Higgins two-out RBI single tied the game 3-3.

With the bases loaded, Jhonen Bath sent a screamer to right field for a two-run single, then Mason McCamey doubled in two more runs for a 7-3 lead as the thunder and rain rolled in.

The game resumed Tuesday with two out in the bottom of the fourth and a Buff on second base.

Braden McCamey opened day two with a rocket over the right fielder’s head for an RBI triple that made it 8-3.

The Rebels hoped that a new day would spring new energy, but their first at bat resulted in three ground balls all to Mason McCamey at third base.

In the fifth, a South Greene error gave West Greene another run for a 9-3 lead.

The Rebels had four hits over the final two innings but were unable to push any runs across.

“Just keeping the same energy that we had before we had to leave the field,” Mason McCamey said on how the Buffs kept their momentum after the long delay. “We just needed to keep our foot on the gas pedal and keep our energy up and come in with the same mindset.”

A surprising star that played on day one of the two-day championship game was pitcher Ethan Campbell, who took the mound for four innings on Monday. He gave up four hits, three runs, walked three and struck out two.

“Something we thought we had that was a strength this year was our pitching,” Sauceman said. “We got two really good arms in both the McCamey boys and then we got Higgins, Campbell and Ethan Carpenter. Carpenter showed up yesterday in the district championship and had thrown 11 innings all year. And for him to come out and give us four innings to start this game off ... we’re not in this position if Carp don’t give us four great innings yesterday.”

Braden McCamey closed the game on Tuesday with three shutout innings. He gave up four hits and struck out three.

Higgins finished 3-for-3 with an RBI, Braden McCamey was 2-for-4 with an RBI, Mason McCamey was 1-for-3 with three RBI, Bath had a hit and two RBI, Campbell had a hit and an RBI, and Garber and Aiden Willett each had a hit.

With the district championship plaque now headed for the West Greene trophy case, the Buffaloes and Rebels turn their attention to the Region 1-2A tournament.

West Greene improves to 21-9 while South Greene falls to 16-11.

“Just because we won the district championship don’t mean we’re good and done,” Mason McCamey said. “We wanna go further than this. We gotta keep working hard and stay in it every day.”

“Nothing changes,” Higgins agreed. “We’ll be in the cages tomorrow hitting like normal. Same energy, same vibes. We’ll play our game and that’s what we’ll keep doing.”

South Greene’s Brendan Lisenby took the loss on the mound, pitching 3 2/3 innings on Monday before Colby Brooks relieved him on Tuesday.

Lisenby gave up eight hits, eight runs and walked four. Brooks gave up two hits, one run, walked one and struck out two.

“It’s tough,” South Greene coach Dalton Ramsey said. “You come into a new day and a new type of weather. It’s kind of hard to come out of a deficit like that. I think Colby Brooks did a great job tonight. We had one bad inning where we just didn’t get much life going for us.”

South Greene’s TJ Buckner went 2-for-3 with two RBI, Colton Fillers was 2-for-4 with an RBI, and Jacob Susong, Seth Franklin, Brooks and Lisenby each had a hit.

“We just gotta go out there and play our game,” Ramsey said. “Limit our mistakes and not let them snowball into multiple mistakes and make the plays, make the hits when we need them.

“Play more unified and not crack under the pressure. We haven’t done it all season long and we get into the championship game and we start handling pressure unlike ourselves. We had pressure all season long and we just hadn’t had this much pressure. To weather the storm a little, we just gotta keep playing our way and not bleed into what the other team’s doing.”