Vancleave tops Lafayette to claim 5A crown
PEARL – Resilience paid off for Vancleave in the form of a state championship on Saturday.
The Bulldogs beat Lafayette 6-1 at Trustmark Park to claim the MHSAA Class 5A title. It was the kind of ending head coach Justin Edwards thought was possible even after his team lost 8-7 in 12 innings in Game 1.
“If there’s ever a team I’ve ever coached, this is the one that I felt the most confident could come back from something like that,” Edwards said. “It was heartbreaking, it was devastating. It was a very difficult loss, but walking away from this field Wednesday night, I honestly still felt that we had a shot.”
Vancleave (29-8) eked out a 2-1 win in Game 2. The drama was minimal in Game 3.
Senior Levi Tapp tossed a complete game, allowing just four hits while striking out seven and walking two.
“He changed speeds just enough that we had some bad swings on some balls in pretty key situations,” Lafayette coach John Walker said. “Unfortunately, it didn’t fall our way, and we simply got beat tonight.”
One of those key situations came in the fourth inning, when the Commodores loaded the bases with no outs. Tapp only allowed one run, ringing up two strikeouts and inducing a pop-up to minimize the damage.
That clutch moment kept Vancleave in front, 3-1.
“That’s a really good team over there, and they could’ve very easily snatched that from us, but we bared down, Levi especially, and didn’t let them grab any momentum there,” Edwards said.
Vancleave touched Lafayette starter Jack Wyatt East for one run in the second inning and two in the third. In the latter frame, Hunter Parker smashed a triple and scored on Tyler West’s double. West then came around on a Layton Eder single to make it 3-0.
Parker and West struck again in the fifth, hitting back-to-back doubles for a 4-1 edge.
Vancleave finished with 10 hits, including two each by West, Maximus Bates and Aidan Tapp.
Extra Bases
Big Inning: Vancleave had three hits in its two-run third.
Big Stat: Of Levi Tapp’s 110 pitches, 74 were strikes.
Coach Speak: “They made us pay for the opportunities that they got, and we didn’t make them pay when we had chances.” – Walker
