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Getting Gritty: Miller bounces St. Chris to earn shot at state title

Photo: Ryan Yemen

There have been a lot of adjustments for the Miller baseball program as it has navigated the complicated waters of moving up from VISAA Division 2 to Division 1 during a pandemic all the while turning over a great deal of talent and leadership. The Mavericks last state title came in 2019 that capped more than a half decade of dominance at the D2 level. Miller played about as wild of a schedule as it could to try and gear up for the D1 state tournament this year, and in the process, earned a much lower seeding than it’s accustomed to, but also learning a lot about what it takes to compete at the highest level.

 

“I love it, love being in this spot,” said Mavericks coach Billy Wagner. “It forces you to feel that urgency. When you’ve won for a long time you lose that urgency. This group has stepped up and now put themselves in a great position to really do something great.”

 

So as the sixth seed Miller hit the road with that underdog attitude, taking down Bishop O’Connell and its ace on Tuesday before lining up with St. Christopher’s. Whether the Mavericks have turned a corner since their two last meetings — both close losses to the perennial power — or whether they were just playing with house money, it didn’t matter much, The result looked familiar. The first few innings of the semifinals during Friday’s night cap were tight but from fourth inning on Miller looked and played just like it did during its championship runs of ‘17, ‘18 and ‘19 to win 6-3 and set up a date with Cape Henry Collegiate to play for another title on Saturday.

 

“It’s gritty guys, the gritty pitching and gritty at-bats,” Wagner said. “It’s guys staying in the moment and going up with a never die attitude. Through the last few years they’ve had to learn how to get that attitude in some really tough games.”

 

T.J. Brooks earned the start for Miller and after working through some early adversity, he wound up throwing five innings, giving up just five hits, one earned run and striking out 10 batters including four in a row between the fourth and fifth innings.

 

“Early on I was having some trouble with my fastball so I was just trying to use my offspeed stuff to keep them off balance,” Brooks said. “Then when I got my fastball back I was a lot more comfortable and able to pitch like I know I can.”

 

The Saints drew first blood in the bottom of the first inning when Joseph Connor hit a leadoff single, was worked over to second base, then took third third on a wild pitch and was finally plated by Carter Schmitt on a sacrifice fly to right field. But Miller answered right back with a leadoff walk from Henry Cooke who was then balked to second, advanced to third on a bunt single from Will Townsend and took home on a wild pitch.

 

Brooks settled in on the mound for Miller by striking out the side for the first time in the second. He then got some help from his offense when Patrick Rakes came up with a 2-out slap single up the middle to score Caden Richter and put the Mavericks ahead. After Noah Murray battled a slew of foul balls to stay alive, he was able to reach on an error and set up Laken Tignor who delivered a 2-run single. And that was followed immediately by a 2-run single from Devin Christopher to break things open at 6-1 in the top of the fourth.

 

“You know we just had a lot of confidence coming into today because we’ve worked so hard all season, really worked our tail off to get here,” Tignor said. “Tonight was really just us taking advantage of each at bat that we had, not trying to do too much.”

 

Brooks looked to be in trouble after back-to-back singles with no outs in the bottom of the fourth but quickly turned things around back in his favor by striking out the side to close out the threat without any damage done. 

 

“Coach came out and he said ‘Just go back to having fun in little league,’” Brooks said. “That’s what I stuck to, (that’s what) showed me how to compete so I went right to that.”

 

St. Christopher’s was able to plate a pair of runs in the fifth with 2-outs after an error and RBI double from Carter Schmitt but Brooks was able to finish the inning and keep Miller out in front at 6-3. 

 

Noah Murray came on in relief in the six and struck out the side to put Miller three outs away from the win. In the seventh he needed just 10 pitches to retire the next three batters he faced and put a bow on the 6-3 win.

 

“T.J. and Noah coming into this game and doing what they did — that was the big step for us, that was them gunning down a very good hitting team with as good a group of one, two, three and four hitters as you’re going to see in the state.” Wagner said. “That team plays for a championship every year, is and has been as good as it gets so that was huge for us.”

 

With three days rest since Tuesday’s game with O’Connell the Mavericks have the option to lean on Jacob Exom for a few innings if they chose but they also have three other arms that have thrown at least 10 innings this season between Christopher, Dustin Wood and Thomas Reilly.

 

“I think all year we’ve had people underestimating us,” Christopher said. “We heard all the talk about Bishop O’Connell. St. Chris and Cape Henry and so far we’ve just tried to not let any of that get in our heads. On Tuesday we got some runs on (UVa commit) Jack O’Connor and that was huge and set us up with this momentum, we kept it going tonight and we’ll try to keep that going again tomorrow.”

 

The first pitch in the VISAA Division 1 championship is slated for 5 p.m. Saturday in Colonial Heights at Shepherd Stadium.

 

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