For the St. Joseph Catholic School baseball team, everything was on the line Thursday night in their home game against Providence Classical. The score was tied 5-5 in the bottom of the sixth inning.
If St. Joe hoped to advance to the second round of the MAIS Class 2A Playoffs, the Irish needed to manufacture runs — by any means necessary.
St. Joseph’s Reed Taylor and Elvis Scott started the inning by walking. Greg Fore then sent a simple but slow dribbler down the third baseline. But Fore’s contact was enough not just to get him to first base but also to induce two Providence Classical throwing errors which allowed the winning runs to score in St. Joseph’s 8-6 victory.
“We did what we needed to do. We put the ball in position and we forced them to make mistakes,” St. Joseph senior Simar Thomas said. “This win was huge for us, and Coach Taylor deserves a lot of credit for what we achieved. We are like a family. We went from last place in the district last year, and now we are advancing to the second round of the playoffs. I am a senior and I have never advanced in the playoffs, so this is really great”
The victory in the best-of-three series for the Irish advances them to next week’s second round where they will play the winner of the series between Centreville Academy and Claiborne Academy, which was expected to end on Friday.
This is the first time the Irish have advanced in the state baseball playoffs since 2014.
Game three of the Irish’s victory over Providence Classical on Thursday was needed after the Irish dropped game two of the series 5-4 earlier Thursday. St. Joseph won game one of the series 14-2 on Tuesday.
St. Joe coach Jason Taylor said the victory was a complete team effort, and he gave extra credit to pitcher Carson Graham who threw a complete game victory with no earned runs.
“Carson did a great job for us, and he has all year,” Coach Taylor said.
St. Joseph moved its record to 12-4 with the victory.
Fore finished game three with two hits and two RBI. Graham had two hits and an RBI. Thomas went 3 for 4 with a double and three RBI. Jordan Jennings hit a double and drove in two runs, and AJ McCloud went two for 3 with an RBI.
