It has been perhaps the most amazing baseball season in northeast Georgia history. If anyone can show us proof otherwise, we’d like to see it.
Doubtful. Very doubtful.
Jefferson finished off Westminster on Wednesday in a three-game battle in Atlanta to give the area three teams in the state finals: the Dragons in Class AAA, Buford in Class AAAA, and Gainesville in Class AAAAA.
It is the first time the area has had three teams in the championship series at one time.
Six area teams -- Buford, Gainesville, Jefferson, Rabun County, Jackson County, and North Hall -- made the quarterfinals, the most in one season ever. Buford, Gainesville, Jefferson, and Rabun County kept things going advancing to the semifinals in their respective classifications, the most to advance to the semifinals in one season.
Several teams also set new milestones in the process. Jackson County won its first-ever playoff game and series; Rabun County advanced past the second round and made the Final Four for the first time-ever; and Jefferson’s win on Wednesday put the Dragons in their first-ever championship series.
Buford is the most recent area champion winning the Class AA title in 2011. You have to go all the way back to 2002 when Gainesville won the second of back-to-back Class AAA titles, their fifth title in a seven-year period, to find the next title winner.
For those who remember recent history, if it’s starting to look a little like 2012 again, it’s not deju vu, it’s real. Buford, Gainesville, and Jefferson each advanced to the title game in football that season. And each came away with a title.
And fortunately, history has a funny way of repeating itself.
All three teams share a common thread to success: pitching. Buford may have the best high school staff ever assembled in Georgia, led by Jake Higginbotham, Connor Bennett, Keyton Gibson, Kevin Coulter, and add in newcomer Justin Glover. All five are Division I signees or prospects.
Gainesville is paced by lefty junior Jonathan Gettys, who has picked up five wins and a save so far for the Red Elephants in the 2015 playoffs. Caleb Whitenton, Harrison Styles, Mikey Gonzalez, and Michael Curry also give them plenty of flexibility on the mound.
Jefferson is led Micah Carpenter and Jake Franklin, as well as Ethan Garner and Asher Standridge, on the hill.
Buford has yielded a ridiculously low nine runs in eight games with four shutouts. The Wolves are so deep that 11-game winner Jake Higginbotham did not pitch in their semifinal series win over Cartersville. Wow.
Jefferson has given up just 25 runs in 10 games with seven of those coming in a Game 3 win over Pierce County in the second round.
Gainesville has allowed 34 runs in nine games but 10 came in Game 2 against South Effingham. They have given up three or less in six of the nine games with one shutout. They did not have to use Styles against Jones County in the semifinals and got three innings of shutout relief from Curry in Game 2.
TITLE TOWNS
If Gainesville wins, it will be its third title since 2001. Only Cartersville (6), Columbus (5), Parkview (4), and Marist (4) have won more in that same span.
Lovett and Wesleyan each have three titles as well and Greenbrier, Loganville, Pope, Milton, and Calhoun all have two titles each for public schools. If you go back to the 1996 season, the start of a three-peat for the Red Elephants, Gainesville has five titles. Only Columbus (7) and Greenbrier (5) have as many statewide over the past 19 seasons.
TOP SEEDS FARED WELL
It could be argued that any of the top three classification finals offer the best matchups in the finals.
In Class AAAAAA, the top two ranked teams coming into the playoffs came out on the other side. No. 1 Parkview will take on No. 2 Walton in Marietta, which should be a titanic battle in the top classification.
In Class AAAAA, No. 3 Gainesville will take on No. 1 Greenbrier in Augusta. Both teams can pitch and both offenses have put up some big numbers. The Red Elephants have shown power throughout the playoffs. Whitenton has 17 home runs and Curry 15 with Gettys notching nine long balls on the season. Curry had a streak of homering in the first six playoff games snapped in Game 3 against South Effingham.
In Class AAAA, No. 1 Buford and No. 2 Whitewater, the AAAAA runner-up in 2014, are expected to put on an epic battle in Fayetteville. Runs will at a premium with eight Division I-caliber pitchers combined. You may want to arrive early because it figures to be a quick series time-wise with the firepower on the mound for both teams.
King’s Ridge in Class A Private repeated earlier this week as state champions. The only other team left with a chance to repeat is No. 1 Blessed Trinity in Class AAA. But the Titans will have to get by No. 4 Jefferson and its vaunted pitching staff, but the series will be played Roswell. The Titans can pitch as well allowing just four runs in eight games so far in the 2015 playoffs. They are 19-1 at home on the season.
MOST NEW CHAMPIONS EVER
It is becoming increasingly evident that the baseball talent in Georgia is getting spread far and wide. The baseball playoffs have born that out this season.
There could be as many as six new champions crowned by Monday. If Jefferson can knock off defending champ Blessed Trinity in AAA, it would mark the most non-repeating champions in baseball ever from one season to the next (6).
