When it finally ended, it was hard to tell who was more drained — a couple dozen teenaged guys, or their parents and friends in the stands.
Regrettably, someone had to lose, but those boys had just served up a treat for true baseball fans. The price of admission was a bargain for this one, and well worth the 100-mile drive on May 6.
Nearly 450 high schools now compete under the N.C. High School Athletic Association banner, and the group has crowned champions in athletic events since 1914. In recent times, the NCHSAA has turned to metrics and algorithms to produce playoff matchups.
Instead of coaches and officials knocking their heads together in smoke-filled rooms, gulping coffee as they argue win-loss records and who has played the tougher schedule, you can picture geeky folks poring over laptops as they multiply wins, total games played, average winning percentages of teams' opponents and ... whew! ... it's enough to make your head spin.
Perhaps they could crunch the data enough to tell us who should win, but sooner or later, thankfully, young men, or women, have to don the uniforms and take the field. Sweat, physical exertion, raw emotion, and — yes — a few breaks, finally decide the games and crown the champs. It's why those young folks work for those uniforms and places on the rosters; and, why the rest of us buy tickets and take our seats to watch them — sometimes gripping them tightly.
Two teams, 89 batters, and four remarkable pitchers reminded us of that over the course of 11 almost-scoreless innings on a field in Raleigh last Tuesday evening. (In contrast, 59 batters produced eight runs over seven innings at Pinecrest in Richmond's conference title win on May 1.)
Richmond Observer Sports Editor Kyle Pillar provides a fine account of the game elsewhere in these pages, but there was plenty more for a baseball purist to gnaw upon beyond the fingernails.
Leesville Road pitchers Alex Higdon and Jack Fields, and Raiders Jason Walker and Jeremiah Ritter, each contributed extensive mound duty. Each one escaped multiple threats with runners in scoring position — often with fewer than two outs. Each relied upon his wits and sparkling defense.
Over the 11 innings, more than a game-and-a-half, there were relatively few walks, errors, and hit batsmen. Each pitcher struck out four or five batters while Fields rung up seven Raiders. But this game produced more than the sum of its raw stats.
For the many who believe in Raider Magic, remember, it is witnessed in efforts as well as in victories. Yes, winning magic would have scored the runner from second base on Colin Hill's clutch sixth-inning single instead of the fine outfield relay that nailed him. Some winning magic in the 10th inning would have lifted Hill's two-out line drive another inch above shortstop Landon Lewis and scored our own Landon Taylor from third.
But you could see it in the faces of the Raider defenders exiting the field after escaping close calls through 10 shutout innings.
You could see it in the face of Jeremiah Ritter leaving the mound after the ninth inning. The opponents' winning run stood at third base with no outs, and Ritt spun two Ks around an easy fly out to Colin Hill at first base.
Coach Eric Brown has set a goal of returning to the great winning traditions of Raider baseball. Although a loss, May 6's extra inning playoff classic against Leesville Road, coupled with the conference tournament championship at Pinecrest, have advanced that goal.
In researching some history of local high school baseball recently, and the first baseball state champions in our county, I came across another episode.
In 1939, a local American Legion team comprised, partly, of boys from Rockingham High School's squads of the late 1930s reached the best-of-five state title series against a Charlotte team that had won three state American Legion championships since 1934.
A core of the Rockingham boys, dating to 1938, would forge a high school state champ in 1940. But in that 1939 American Legion championship tilt, Charlotte squashed them, convincingly, in games one and two. Before game three, one of the key local pitchers developed a sore arm while another was hospitalized due to a serious illness. Discussion ensued of forfeiting game three, and the series.
The chances are convincing that Charlotte would have won the series. In a team vote, however, the local players elected to persevere and compete. Officials overruled them and the series ended in a forfeit. Doubtlessly, they believed they were acting in the boys' best interests.
But on the cusp of a terrible world war, maybe those young men were telling the adults something. They were staring at adversity and saying, "We'll face it ... just put us in uniform and let us compete!"
As a couple of dozen young men showed us the other evening, that desire still burns. May it always be so. Local fans should have two simple words for our 2025 Raiders: Thank you.
