Heritage Into Championship
The Vidalia Heritage Academy Eagles baseball team took on Flint River Academy in the Final 4 of the GAPPS State A Baseball Playoffs last week. The Eagles rolled to two wins to sweep the best-of-three series.
The win moves the Eagles into the State Championship. Last year in just the third season of varsity baseball the Eagles finished as the State Runners-up, losing to Habersham School. This year VHA defeated Habersham in the first round of the playoffs. In this year's Championship the Eagles will face off with Praise Academy on the road in Powder Springs on Friday of this week.
Game 1
The Eagles were in Woodbury last week for the semifinals against Flint River's Wildcats. On Thursday in the first game, the Eagles ran away with the win. Heritage jumped out in front with four runs in the top of the first inning to take the early lead. They added three more in the second to push their lead to 7-0.
In the bottom of the second inning the Wildcats got on the board with one run, but that was all the Eagles and pitcher Mason Beacham allowed in the game. Heritage added a run in the top of the third, and then in the fifth they scored six more to take a 14-1 lead.
VHA held in the bottom of the sixth inning to win the game by the run rule, 14-1.
Ethan Sikes led the Eagles at the place with 4 RBI's. Beacham added 3 RBI's on 3 hits. Jackson Franklin and JT Cofield each had 3 hits in the game as well.
Game 2
On Friday the two teams played the second game of the series, and again Heritage was the dominate team. VHA was the home team in Game 2.
Neither team scored in the first inning, but in the bottom of the second inning the Eagles jumped ahead with six runs. Heritage added a run in the fourth to increase their lead to 7-0.
Flint River plated one run in the top of the sixth inning, but VHA answered in the bottom half of the frame with three more runs to go up 10-1. Heritage held in the top of the seventh to take the win by that score.
Hardy Franklin drove in 4 runs in the game to lead the Eagles. Sikes and Cofield added two hits each. Cofield was on the mound for the second game and got the win along with 13 stikeouts.
This week the Eagles will be on the road at Praise Academy. They will meet for a double header on Friday with the first game at 4:00 p.m. If necessary they will play a third game on Saturday at 2:00 p.m.
