Don't count the West Brunswick baseball team out, ever.
Despite ranking last of the Mideastern Conference's eight teams, the Trojans (10-9, 2-8 MEC) have knocked off two of the state's top teams this season with shocking upsets over Ashley and Topsail.
The team nearly topped Hoggard on April 16, leading 3-2 in the seventh inning before losing 6-3 in extra innings. For West Brunswick coach Greg Wrape, standings don't mean much.
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"I expect to win every game," Wrape said. "If you look at the results, we're at the bottom, but if you look a little deeper into it, we're right in those games. I feel like, and our guys feel like, we can beat anybody."
Wrape is in his second year as the Trojans' head coach. Last spring, he led the team to a 15-11 record and its first playoff win since 2017. He formerly coached baseball at Scotland and maintains that the Mideastern Conference is the toughest in the state.
"Every team, top to bottom, can beat any team on any given night," Wrape said of the MEC. "You better be ready to play every night, or you can be beaten by anybody. If somebody looks at us and thinks, that's a gimmie because they're in last, they've got another thing coming."
Of West Brunswick's eight losses this season, half have been by three runs or less. Reverse those close games, and the Trojans would be tied for the conference's third-place spot, a prominent example of the level of play in the MEC.
Starting 2024 hot, West Brunswick went 6-0 in nonconference action this spring. They would lose to Hoggard (10-0) and New Hanover (3-2) to start conference play.
Then things got interesting. Visiting top-ranked Ashley the following game, nobody expected much. For West Brunswick, it was time to show they wouldn't be pushed around.
After trailing 3-1 for most of the game, the Trojans shocked as they rattled off four seventh-inning runs to stun the then top-ranked Screaming Eagles 5-4.
Emblematic of what was to come, the team reignited a flame of confidence that still burns today.
"Everybody just thinks that they're gonna walk over us, and then they come out here, and we almost beat them, or we do beat them, everybody's on their toes when they come to play us the second time," senior shortstop Noah Fluharty said.
"The second time you play us, it's going to be a different team," junior catcher and pitcher Garrett Powell said. "Any day in the 3A/4A split, it's going to be a dog fight."
West Brunswick made waves again, defeating Topsail 7-3 in Hampstead on April 13. The Trojans nearly carried that momentum into a revenge win over Hoggard on April 16 in Shallote but came up just short.
The Trojans remain the only team in the state to beat Ashley and Topsail this spring, with both sides sitting inside MaxPrep's top five 4A East rankings.
While West Brunswick's 2024 season doesn't jump out at first glance, a closer examination reveals the Trojans as one of the area's most formidable teams, a notion they'll look to carry into the 3A state playoffs in May.
"If we keep playing the way we've played the last few games, it's going to be hard for anyone to beat us," Powell said. "If we keep playing the way we're playing, we're going to shock some people."
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