How Southside Christian baseball won Class A high school Upper State championship
SIMPSONVILLE – Southside Christian pitcher George Massingill was on the ground, not the mound.
His next opponent became his own emotions.
It was the sixth inning of the high school Class A Upper State baseball championship Wednesday night at Sabre Park. Massingill had just given up the first hit of the game by Christ Church.
But now he was down, maybe out, with a leg cramp.
“I shed a few tears,” he said. “But there was no chance I was coming out.”
Massingill got to his feet, tossed a couple of warmup pitches, declared himself OK, and finished a complete-game three-hitter as Southside Christian beat Christ Church 2-1 for the Upper State title.
Defending state champion Southside Christian (18-10) will play at home 6 p.m. Saturday against Lower State champion Lake View in the opener of best-of-three series. The second game will be 6 p.m. Tuesday at Lake View and a third, if necessary, at a neutral site.
Christ Church (18-9), which shared the Region 1-A title with Southside Christian, forced a true championship game earlier Wednesday by beating the Sabres, 3-1.
George Massingill 'pitched on guts'
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Massingill's fastball never really popped. He regularly hits upper-80s, but his best on this night was about 83 or 84 mph.
“My velocity didn’t come,” he said. “So, I had to slow down my offspeed and just find a way to get outs. Luckily, the curveball and the slider were running away from (batters) and they didn’t touch it, really.”
Massingill struck out nine and walked none. He fanned seven of nine batters from the end of the third inning into the sixth.
“He pitched on guts,” Southside Christian coach Scott Freeman said.
Christ Church pushed hard in Upper State
Christ Church beat Southside Christian twice during the regular season.
The Cavaliers, after two quick outs in the final inning of the second game Wednesday, got a hit to stay alive and then an infield pop fell untouched to put the tying run on third base.
Southside Christian had allowed two unearned runs in the seventh inning of the first game to lose and things nearly unraveled again.
“We played great defense – until the end,” Freeman said.
Sabres got boost from return of Carson Boleman
Southside Christian freshman Carson Boleman, who has already committed to Wake Forest as a pitcher, has been out all season with an arm injury.
Boleman rejoined the lineup for Upper State as a designated hitter. He never got an official at-bat in the title game but helped win it anyway. He was twice hit by pitches to lead off an inning, and that led to both runs.
In the fifth, he was intentionally walked, saving himself a third bruise.
“I told him not to expect too much,” Freeman said. “But just having him in the lineup impacts everybody else around him.”
This article originally appeared on Greenville News: Southside Christian beats rival, wins high school baseball Upper State
