Saturday sweep
MONTGOMERY – Garrett Farquhar ignored his coach’s instructions.
“He’ll run tomorrow,” Hoover coach Adam Moseley joked.
Farquhar called a team meeting at the hotel after dropping Game 1 of the Class 7A state baseball finals to Auburn on Friday night. Instead of heading straight to bed, the team met to regroup.
“We said we didn’t play our best game, and we still know we have confidence that we’re going to come back on top,” Farquhar said.
It worked, as the Hoover High School baseball team overcame a loss in Game 1 and won both games on Saturday at Montgomery’s Riverwalk Stadium, topping Auburn twice to claim the school’s second state baseball championship.
Adam Moseley and the Bucs won the school’s first baseball title since 2008. In his third season at Hoover, the Bucs finished off a playoff run that saw them go 8-1 over the last four weekends.
“Coach (Matt) Cimo and his team and his staff did a great job,” Moseley said. “That’s a tough team to beat. The difference in the whole series is maybe two total runs. They’re a really well-coached team, and we feel very fortunate to be here. We also feel very much like these kids earned it. It’s a special thing for our kids and they’ve worked really hard and we’re very proud of them.”
After winning the first game on Saturday, the Bucs jumped out to a big lead and overcame an Auburn rally in the final inning to win, 6-5, and put into action a Buccaneer dogpile for the fourth consecutive week.
“I hate losing, and we lost today,” said Auburn coach Matt Cimo. “They played better than us today. You’ve got to give Hoover credit.”
Brock Guffey – who carved up the Auburn lineup in Game 2 – came on with two outs in the sixth and converted the save despite a flirtation with the scoreboard and the pitch count.
“He arguably the best pitching season ever at Hoover, so who else do you want on the mound at the end of the game?” asked Moseley.
Brock Guffey said he felt some fatigue, but in the final game of his high school career, that was a non-issue.
“Mentally, I knew I could do it,” he said. “Physically, I was a little worn out. I was going to go out there – I told coach all season, whenever, however, he wants me to pitch, no matter rain, storm, night, day, I don’t really care. That’s what we did.”
Three hits in the seventh allowed Auburn to pull within a run, but with Auburn’s Rowdy Jordan representing the tying run on first base, Hoover catcher Max Garvey made one of the critical plays in the series.
On a pitch in the dirt, the ball bounced in front of Garvey, tempting Jordan to dance a few steps off the bag at first. Garvey retrieved the ball quickly and fired a dart to first base, where Drew Guffey caught the ball, spun around and laid the tag to pick Jordan off.
“It’s hard to catch those games,” said Moseley. “He’s dying back there and he summons up the strength to throw behind right there and get the best player that we’ve seen all year. It was an unbelievable play. That’s what it takes.”
Brock Guffey struck out the following batter on a nasty curveball in the dirt, forcing him to chase. The Bucs’ bench was seemingly ready to burst at the seams waiting on Garvey to make the throw to first for the final out.
Once he did, it erupted.
“I’m just thankful for the opportunity we got here,” said Farquhar, who also led the Hoover football team to a state championship in his senior season and finished the day with four total hits. “My boys, they knew I was going to make plays for them, and I’m just very excited and blessed to have been here. It’s amazing.”
The final out was likely the last batter Brock Guffey would have been able to face. He unofficially threw 96 pitches in the Game 2 start, and eclipsed the 120 total pitches that pitchers are allowed in a day in the final batter. Once that number is eclipsed, pitchers are allowed to finish the at-bat.
It was just enough.
To begin Game 3, Hoover was gifted a baserunner in the first inning, as Farquhar reached on an error. Sonny DiChiara took full advantage and sliced a ball into the right field corner to bring Farquhar around to score for the 1-0 lead.
The same scenario played itself out in the third inning, as DiChiara got the scoring started in a big third inning. He belted a pitch to deep center for a double, and Farquhar was waved around third. The throw beat him to the plate, but the Auburn catcher was unable to corral the ball in time to place the tag.
After DiChiara grounded into a double play with the bases loaded in the first game of the day, redemption was sweet in the final game.
“I was just thinking what else could go wrong?” DiChiara said. “Coming into the third game, I just went back to what I usually do, and just let it loose.”
DiChiara scored on a passed ball to make it 3-0, and Drew Guffey roped a base hit through the left side to score Brandon Agsalud and make it 4-0.
After an Auburn pitching change, Ty Robinson took the first pitch he saw and laced it to the wall in right field and two runs came home. The five-run inning gave Hoover a 6-0 lead that the Bucs would be able to hang on to.
Auburn did not pick up its first hit of the game until the fifth inning, and they managed to chip into the deficit slightly, as the Tigers dented the scoreboard with a run-scoring groundout and got another run on a wild pitch to cut Hoover’s lead to 6-2. Auburn tacked on another run in the sixth without the benefit of a hit, as a leadoff walk, two groundouts and a wild pitch allowed a run in.
Devin Cole went five strong innings in Game 3, allowing two unearned runs on just the one hit. Tyler Williams registered a two-hit Game 3, along with Farquhar and DiChiara.
Brock Guffey took the ball in Game 2 for the Bucs and gave them the kind of performance that allowed Hoover to cruise into the deciding game. He went the distance, allowing just two hits while striking out 11 Auburn batters.
“I had a lot of confidence going in, because (Moseley) knew what they had and he was going to call pitches they weren’t going to be able to hit. As long as I threw strikes and kept my pitch count, I knew I was going to be able to win the ball game,” Brock Guffey said.
Brock Guffey began things by striking out the side in the first inning and had five after two innings. He allowed just two base runners, a single in the third and a double in the fifth.
“That just kind of let everybody know – Brock had his best stuff today, so if we could go do our job offensively, then he was going to take care of his end of the bargain,” Moseley said.
On that fifth-inning double, Trey Woodham hit a ball all the way to the wall in right field and had aspirations of stretching it to a triple. However, a perfect relay from Hoover right fielder Tyler Williams, to shortstop Garrett Farquhar, to third baseman Peyton Wilson ended all hopes of that and ended the inning.
Hoover put runs on the board in the second, third and fourth innings and that was all it needed to provide Guffey in the way of support.
The Bucs struck first on Drew Guffey’s RBI groundout in the second. After a CJ Gilliland walk, Williams hit a chopper to third base that could have turned into a double play. Instead, the Auburn third baseman’s errant throw sailed into right field, putting Hoover runners on the corners with one out for Drew Guffey.
A walk and two singles loaded the bases with no one out for Hoover in the third, but DiChiara hit a grounder back to the mound that turned into a double play. Undeterred, Brandon Agsalud followed with a sharp single to left to plate a pair of runs and give the Bucs a 3-0 edge.
Auburn helped Hoover out in the fourth inning, when Ty Robinson was caught dead to rights on a pickoff attempt at first base, but the throw to second was wild and Robinson later scored when Peyton Wilson managed to beat out an infield hit.
Wilson had two hits in the game and Gilliland walked three times.
A senior class of 13 – Ben Abercrombie, Agsalud, Cole, Farquhar, Gilliland, Brock Guffey, Drew Guffey, Kenly Hager, Tanner Hendrix, Jacob Kopkin, Ty Robinson, Kenneth Watson and Williams – left its mark on the Hoover program, a season that will have its own place in history in halls of Hoover.
“It’s the closest team I’ve ever been a part of. This is a special, special group,” Moseley said.