SMYRNA – The Greeneville baseball team continued its quest for another State Championship on Wednesday by defeating Alcoa 9-5 in the Class 3A State Tournament.
It took forever to get the game started, but Greeneville made the wait well worth it for Greene Devil faithful. The game was originally scheduled for a 12:30 start time, but the prior game lasted longer than expected and the incoming weather added a longer wait time. Lawrence County and Covington delivered an all-timer and scored a new TSSAA State Tournament record for most runs in a single game. Thirty four runs, 32 hits, 6 errors, 6 hours, and a lot of impatience later we finally saw the Greene Devils take the field.
The rain clouds left and Greeneville squared off with Alcoa. A lot was on the line as you would expect on this stage and the Greene Devils are no stranger to it.
The game relied on senior Randen Fillers. The senior pitcher was eyeing redemption after last year’s loss in the state tournament. A year ago Fillers started against South Gibson and allowed 3 earned runs in only one inning of work. This time around Fillers was dialed in. The senior pitched six scoreless innings before surrendering three runs in the seventh inning. His final line was six innings pitched, four hits, three earned runs, and three strikeouts.
Fillers spoke about his success and how he stayed locked in on the mound. “Just staying within myself and trying to stay calm and stay confident and just throw it in the zone,” he said.
Filllers mentioned how last year’s game wasn’t even on his mind headed into Wednesday’s game. With the past being the past, Fillers put that behind him and shifted all of his focus on Alcoa and delivered a strong outing. “Honestly, I wasn’t really thinking about it, I was just thinking to come in and be you and do your thing and do what you know how to do. It really wasn’t on my mind at all,” he stated.
The team’s spark plug and energy guy was senior Maddox Bishop. The senior had a near career day with so many clutch plays throughout the contest Bishop cranked a leadoff home run over the left field wall on the first pitch of the game to instantly put Alcoa on notice. Bishop went 3-for-4 with four RBIs, two runs, a double, and a home run with five putouts in center field.
“When the playoffs hit, all the emotions go up and you want to play for all your guys and all your teammates. I think that’s the most important thing,” Maddox stated.
Greeneville scored nine runs on 14 hits and drew three walks with three hit by pitches. The defense committed zero errors and stayed clean all seven innings.
The Greene Devils reached a landmark win total on Wednesday night. Greeneville achieved their 40th win by beating Alcoa. It’s the first 40-win season in program history. The Devils improved to 40-8 on the season and have won 10-straight games.
After a very long wait the Greene Devils finally took the field and Bishop started it with a bang. Bishop went first pitch swinging and hit a solo bomb over the left field wall for a leadoff home run.
“I knew he had a pretty firm fastball and I was wanting to come out aggressive and he threw me my pitch and I took advantage of it,” Bishop explained.
Greeneville led 1-0 after one.
Both pitchers and defenses settled in comfortably and kept each frame scoreless through the first four innings after the first pitch. Fillers held Alcoa to only one hit through the first four innings. Greeneville had chances, but was picked off at first and caught stealing at second and couldn’t string together multiple hits to create scoring opportunities. But sometimes all it takes is one thing for everything to change.
There’s a saying as old as time that says, “don’t wake the sleeping bear.” Basically stating to not provoke someone or something that could cause major trouble. Well, Alcoa may have done that. An Alcoa player seemed to taunt Greeneville walking off the field in the middle of the fourth inning and it may have woken the sleeping bear.
A huge momentum shifting play occurred at the end of the bottom half with Maddox Bishop making a diving catch in center field that resulted in an 8-4 double play to end the inning.
“He hit it hard into the left center gap and I knew I was going to half to lay fully out to get that one and that’s what I did. The dude thought it was going to be down so he took off running to third and then I ended up catching it and it was an easy double play from there. Got our team back in the dugout and got the bats going again,” Bishop explained.
That play carried over onto the offensive side as Greeneville exploded for six runs in the fifth inning. Kase Spradlen started with a leadoff single. Jaxon Winter laid down a sacrifice bunt two batters later that resulted in an error that led to Spradlen scoring all the way from second. Bishop continued his impressive day with an RBI-double to score Winter. Kaine Ricker helped Bishop score with an RBI-single next. Tegan Begley doubled to put both himself and Ricker in scoring position. Will Harmon was intentionally walked to load the bases next. Grayson Crosby and Sam Thompson delivered back-to-back RBI-singles to score Ricker and Begley. The Greene Devils batted around all the way back to Kase Spradlen again and he flew into a sac fly to score Harmon.
Greeneville led 7-0 after five and continued scoring in the sixth.
Jack Lister led off with a single and Maddox Bishop delivered yet another RBI scoring Lister from second on an RBI-single. Greeneville led 8-0 after six and led 9-0 entering the bottom of the seventh after, you guessed it, Maddox Bishop was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded.
Alcoa managed to make it interesting by scoring 5 runs in the bottom of the seventh, but junior Silar Lewis came in to finish the job and helped Greeneville close it out.
Greeneville won 9-5 and will play Alcoa again on Thursday at 2 PM central time in the Class 3A semifinals. Alcoa defeated Covington 4-3 late Wednesday night to set up another game with the Greene Devils. Greeneville only has to win once to advance to the State Championship Game. Alcoa would have to beat Greeneville twice to eliminate them.
The games will be played at Smyrna High School.
