History made! Legion baseball comes back to win first state championship in first try
Ryan Deal didn’t think about whether he was going to make the play of the game — and, subsequently, of the Legion Collegiate baseball program’s young but robust history — when he settled into the batter’s box in the top of the sixth inning of the 2A state championship series finale on Tuesday night.
He claims he just stepped up to the plate ready to do his “job.”
With the bases loaded with no outs, with the game against region foe and Lancaster County’s Andrew Jackson on the brink of exploding, Deal provided the game’s dagger: The senior slapped a fastball to right center field. The ball floated and floated and floated, and once it found the grass, Deal threw a triumphant arm in the air mid-sprint to first base. He knew what he’d done.
That swing, which ended up being a Deal double, cleared the bases and drove in three runs — providing a bulk of offense in a nine-run sixth inning for the Lancers that not only erased a four-run deficit but took the proverbial wind out of Andrew Jackson’s sails.
Two innings and a Legion pitcher Joey Hylinski strikeout later to end the game in the bottom of the seventh, and there it was: The Legion win, 10-7, over Andrew Jackson. The tossing of mitts in celebration. The dogpile on the mound. The screams. The hoisting of the trophy. The pictures.
A player’s “job” — and a program’s season(s)-long mission — fulfilled.
A Legion baseball state championship.
“Honestly, at the bottom (of the dogpile) it didn’t feel that great,” Deal told reporters postgame with a smile, his eyeblack smeared by sweat and a state championship medal wrapped around his neck. “I just knew inside that all of the work paid off, and that just (mattered more) than everything. It’s just amazing what we could do as a team.”
Tuesday’s win at Lancaster High School’s baseball field, a neutral site, delivered Legion its first baseball state championship and its second team state title in school history. The Rock Hill public charter, which opened in 2019, won a softball state championship last week.
“In the beginning of the year, all the way up until spring break, this game would’ve been a loss,” Legion baseball head coach Devon Lowery told reporters postgame. “But at spring break, these guys and our coaches made up our minds to change the way that we practice and the way we handle things.”
The coach went on to say that Legion would end practices with a scenario — with a scrimmage where his team was down several runs starting in the fifth inning, which would then require a comeback by the seventh inning: “We always had to find a way to scratch in practice. And these guys, time after time, for two and a half months, always answered the call. And they’ll tell you when you interview them, that’s all this was. It was practicing in the seventh inning, to chip away and score runs.
“And man, I didn’t know we were going to score nine runs. But we put up a nine spot, and the rest was history.”
What happened in the championship series finale Tuesday?
The state championship excitement and tension was palpable on Tuesday night. The game felt destined to be special before its first pitch: It featured two arms — Legion sophomore lefty Xavier Pelzer and Andrew Jackson junior (and Wake Forest commit) Kyle Percival — who each put on pitching shows in Game One of the series last week.
And through two three-up-three-down half-innings, the game looked like it would again be a low-scoring affair.
That all changed eventually, though.
Legion began the scoring in the top of the second: After a Devin Parks single, who would then reach second on a fielding error and then third on a wild pitch, Colby Guy grounded out to shortstop to send Parks in and earn the game’s first RBI. 1-0, Legion up.
Later, in the bottom of the fourth, an Andrew Jackson Landon Peavy walk and then an Ashton Phillips double put runners on second and third. And then a balk called against Legion pitcher Pelzer knotted the game at one apiece.
The bottom of the fifth was when the game truly broke open: AJ scored four runs to take what felt like a commanding lead by virtue of a Skylar Hegler two-run home run — which drove in himself and Andrew Taylor — and then an Ashton Phillips double with the bases loaded that drove in two more. 5-1, AJ led.
Legion’s prospects, at this point, looked bleak. But then, out of nowhere, came the aforementioned monstrous, nine-run sixth inning:
▪ First, there was a Hunter Fryzowicz single with Legion runners on first and second, which ultimately sent Johnathan Douglas home. 5-2, Andrew Jackson up.
▪ Then there was a Jack Killelea double which sent in another two runs. 5-4, Andrew Jackson up.
▪ Then there were four consecutive walks, which drove in two more Legion runs (Ethan Belk and William Spang). 6-5, Legion up.
▪ Then there was Deal’s aforementioned, base-clearing double. 9-5.
▪ And then there were two more walks to make the score 10-5 before Andrew Jackson’s Bry Neal was subbed in and struck out the side.
“We got a lot of dogs on our team,” Guy told The Herald postgame, the celebration on the field still ongoing. “We knew we could come back. We’ve been practicing for this since August. We knew what we had to do — and we executed.”
The Volunteers wouldn’t quit. In the bottom of the seventh, back-to-back-to-back hits from Peavy (double), Phillips (triple) and Percival (single) put the game at 10-7. But the score wouldn’t budge from there.
Andrew Jackson head coach Mike Lucas told The Herald after the game that he was proud of his players’ resilience during Tuesday night’s contest, despite falling just short of ultimate glory.
“We completed everything that we wanted to do except win the last game, and that was the goal — to win our last game,” Lucas said of his team, adding, “And they played really well tonight. They come back in the last inning, showing a lot of guts and determination. Pitching just didn’t get it done tonight, and that’s the first time they didn’t get it done. If you would’ve told me we scored seven runs on them, I’ll tell you we beat them every time.”
Andrew Jackson starter Percival threw seven strikeouts and allowed five hits and six runs in 5.0 innings of work. He was one of four AJ pitchers.
Pelzer threw two strikeouts and allowed three hits and four runs in 4.1 innings of work. He was relieved by Joey Hylinski, who ultimately earned the win and threw six strikeouts and allowed three runs in 2.2 innings on the mound.
“Honestly, I just knew that if I came out and did what I do, I knew my guys were going to have my back,” Pelzer told The Herald. “I for sure didn’t have my best start today, but I knew that they’d have my back.”
Hylinski added, nodding to Pelzer: “He just set the tone for the whole game, and I just needed to back it up. That’s about it.”
How Andrew Jackson, Legion baseball teams met in finals
Monday’s state championship series finale marked the end of a special, refreshingly full 2020-21 high school spring sports season — and it also punctuated two remarkable postseason runs by the Legion and Andrew Jackson baseball teams.
Let’s start with how Legion got here: The team based in Rock Hill, which embarked on its first full season in 2021 after last year was cut short because of COVID, began the year as the No. 3 team in 2A baseball, per the preseason South Carolina Baseball Coaches Association poll. And they proved their worth early on: The Lancers won seven of their first eight — their only loss coming against 4A state playoff team Lugoff-Elgin.
Legion then struggled right before the bulk of region play in the regular season, losing six of seven in early April (including a 6-5 loss to Andrew Jackson in the team’s first region game of the season). But that stretch didn’t appear to shake them: The Lancers didn’t lose the rest of the regular season en route to a 16-7 record and the Region 4-2A title.
As for the Volunteers of Andrew Jackson? They, too, lived up to their 2021 preseason hype. AJ began the year as the No. 4 team in the 2A statewide coaches poll and finished second in their region.
Region 4-2A, unlike most regions in the S.C. High School League, sends its first-place team to a No. 1 seed in the Upper State bracket and sends its second-place team to a No. 1 seed in the Lower State bracket. And — despite a swirl of questions about the region’s playoff seeding right before the state playoffs, ones that arose from a Legion ineligible player issue and ultimately delayed the 2A baseball playoffs a few days — that was what ultimately happened: Legion was sent as a No. 1 seed in the Upper State, and Andrew Jackson was sent as a No. 1 seed in the Lower State.
And neither lost until they met again in the state championship series.
Andrew Jackson, which opened in 1969 and was going for its first baseball state championship in school history this year, took Game One in a riveting pitcher’s duel. Legion mercy-ruled AJ to win Game Two.
And, of course, Legion took Game Three.
Quotes from Legion’s historic night
Here’s Ryan Deal, again: “This is our first-ever time doing this. This is our first-ever (title) in school history, you know? In that sense, it’s just… I don’t know what to say. I’m just happy for all of us. It’s something that we can hold onto forever.”
In the bottom of the first inning, Legion shortstop Colby Guy had the defensive highlight of the game. He fielded a ground ball with his backhand and — as his momentum drifted away from the first base bag — he jumped and launched a Derek Jeter-type throw to first base, which beat out a fast AJ runner.
Here’s Pelzer on the play: “Off the bat, I just already knew Colby had it. I just knew after I saw him grab that ball, I said, ‘Oh yeah, it’s going our way.’ And then after that, all of our energy came together. I feel like this is our first team win that we all came together.”
Here’s Guy, himself, on the same play: “Reactions, man, reactions. It just came to me and I threw it as quickly as possible. … I knew that when the ball came my way, I had to make the play for my team.”
Here’s Hylinski on when this state championship win will sink in: “It just happened so fast, it hasn’t hit yet. I’m sure tomorrow when I wake up, it will hit. But not right now. I’m just trying to enjoy the moment.”
Here’s Legion coach Lowery on what this win does for Legion’s future: “I can tell you what it does: It sets a strong foundation for baseball players at this school. And it sets a foundation so strong that these six guys, these six coaches with me, they’re excited about going back to work in about a week because we gotta develop again. This is not going to be the ceiling for Legion Collegiate baseball. This is just the start.”
This story was originally published June 8, 2021 at 11:32 PM.
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