Greatness for Gators: River Bluff wins first baseball state championship
After a wild start Wednesday, the River Bluff High School baseball team needed someone to calm things down. Andrew Vaughan was ready for the challenge.
The right-handed pitcher didn’t allow a run over the final five innings and the Gators scored twice in the top of the seventh to defeat Blythewood 9-7 and sweep the best-of-three Class 5A championship series.
“I was ready to go in whenever they needed me,” Vaughan said while holding the state championship trophy. “Thomas Powell did his thing, I did my thing and we won it.
“It is just the happiest moment in my life so far.”
It’s the program’s first state championship and ninth team title since the Lexington County school opened 10 years ago.
The Gators were making their third championship appearance after losing in the series-deciding game in 2017 and 2018. River Bluff won the opening games in both of those series and won Monday’s opening game 2-0.
River Bluff coach Mark Bonnette coach didn’t expect another pitchers’ duel like the opener, despite two of teams’ top two pitchers starting with the Gators Thomas Powell and Blythewood’s Landon Penfield. Bonnette was right — the teams combined for 13 runs in the first two innings, which took 62 minutes to play.
Vaughan came in the game with one out in the second inning and the Bengals up 7-6. Blythewood had runners on second and third, but he got out of that jam and quieted their bats the rest of the way.
Vaughan threw 5.2 innings of scoreless relief and allowed one hit. He gave up three hits across 7.2 innings pitched in the series. He’s been one of the Gators’ most reliable pitchers out of the bullpen all season and continued that in the playoffs.
Vaughan threw 3.2 innings of shutout relief against Summerville in the deciding game of the Lower State championship game.
“Andrew has been in so many big moments,” Bonnette said. “It was a tough call. Do we go to him there? It was game two and we had a 1-0 series lead. But Andrew has been our guy all year out of the bullpen.
“And for Andrew to come in right there, right the ship, put some zeroes up on the board, that is just huge.”
River Bluff (28-7) tied the game at 7-7 in the top of the fifth on Walker Mitchell’s RBI double. The Gators had the go-ahead run thrown out at the plate to end the inning on a nice relay throw by Blythewood’s Alex Myers.
In the seventh, River Bluff’s Weston Grant was hit by a pitch to start the inning and moved to second on a passed ball. He moved to third on an error from a pickoff attempt and then scored on a wild pitch.
River Bluff added another run on a Blythewood mistake to make it 9-7. The Bengals made two of their three errors in the final inning.
Vaughan retired the Bengals in order in the bottom of the inning. Then the celebration began.
“We have been so close here,” Bonnette said. “This was our third time to get to play for it and there has been some heartbreak. But this team was special and we were able to finish it.”
South Carolina commit Beau Hollins was 1-for-4 with four RBIs, including a three-run homer to put the Gators up 6-4. It was Hollins’ 18th HR of the season, second-most in state history behind former Bamberg-Ehrhardt standout and 10-year Major Leaguer Preston Wilson’s 22 homers.
Mitchell, Colby Reynolds and Logan Busbee each had two hits and an RBI for River Bluff.
Blythewood’s Carson Weathers was 1-for-4. His grand slam off the scoreboard gave the Bengals a 4-2 lead after the first inning. Myers and Macon Leppert each had a hit and an RBI for the Bengals.
The loss ended a special run for the Bengals under interim coach Dolan Crolley. The Bengals had a coaching change in the offseason with Banks Faulkner leaving to take a job at Newberry College, and they didn’t have the lofty expectations from a year ago.
Blythewood (24-8) started the season ranked No. 7 but with a lot of questions. They went on to capture the Region 3-5A championship and were unbeaten in the playoffs until the championship series.
“They have got to be proud of everything they did this year,” Crolley said. “The beginning of the season, we were kind of looked at as the guys that didn’t achieve what we wanted to last year. We kind of got looked at in the back burner almost, underdogs the whole way through.
“But our seniors set an example and a goal to be in this moment and they achieved it. We fell short and it sucks, but everything leading up to this is exactly what they set out to do.”
This story was originally published May 24, 2023 at 10:04 PM.
