Coming into the last game of the regular season the Lions were tied for first place with rival Ragland, but the tiebreaker system gave Victory the Class 1A Area 11 championship.
“We were the number one seed. We were tied with Ragland and one of those tiebreakers that worked against us in football kind of helped us in baseball,” Victory Christian head coach Scotty Smith said. “We split the two games against them and we both beat everybody else in our area. They beat us 3-2, we beat them 11-10, so we are pretty even.
“From just looking at scores and talking with other coaches it sounds like out of the 16 teams in the North, 10 of them are pretty equal and they put us in that group. Hopefully we can win two out of three, so we can play next week.”
For the Lions this is the first time that they have made the postseason in baseball since 2006. Smith said the excitement of hosting a playoff series has spread throughout the entire school.
“Yeah we are excited,” Smith said. “This is the first time that we are playing at home in the playoffs. They have only had this field for three and half years. Last time we went to the playoffs I think it was in 2006. They had three good players then. They are excited, the kids at the school are excited because it is spring and they get out of class early to watch a ball game.”
The senior core of Alex Jernigan, Michael Kirby and Zach Johnston has helped the Lions to a 13-9 recorded, which is an 11 game improvement from when Smith took over the baseball program.
“We have three seniors: Alex Jernigan, Zach Johnston, and Michael Kirby,” Smith said. “All three played football. Alex is a real good first baseman and he has real good hands. He is going to bat 250, but he makes up for it in the field. He has made some great plays in the field.
“Michael Kirby is a great center fielder. He can catch; he could play infield, but he is left-handed and we never do it. Every now and then he pitches and catches. Zach is our utility guy. He can pitch; he is probably our fourth or fifth pitcher. He can play first, second (base), and just about every position in the outfield. When he pitches, he fields his pitches probably better than everybody at that the position.”
For the Lions there is no place like home. This season they have a 6-1 record at their field.
“This is the first time Victory has made the playoffs in four years,” senior Michael Kirby said. ”We feel pretty confident hosting here since we are 6-1 at home. We only lost to St. Clair County; we didn’t play our best game then. It has been a lot fun this season. Hopefully we can get out and win a state championship.”
This is the second sport that Kirby has helped lead into to the playoffs this season. In football the Lions came up short as they lost a close game in the first round of the playoffs.
“I just want to get out of the first round,” Kirby said. “I haven’t made it through the first round in football. Just to do it in baseball would be great. Once we get two wins, we won’t be nervous any more. I think we will be settled in and good.”
The Lions have outscored their last two opponents 40-13 in their last two area games.
“We have just been working really hard this season,” Johnston said. “We have been dominating in the area and it is the first time that we made the playoffs in a while.”
The Lions finished the season on a four-game winning streak. Jernigan believes that working together as a team has been key for their success.
“We are just excited that we are going to the playoffs this year,” Jernigan said. “This is the first year that we were able to accomplish it in both in football and baseball. We’ve had a real good team this year. We have had leadership out of our seniors.
“We have a real good coach telling us what to do over there. We just pulled together when times were hard. In tough games we would just pull together as a team. Teamwork gets us there every time.”
The Lions seniors are looking forward to making this post season a memorable one.
“Being a senior will make you cry with all these sports,” Jernigan said. “We are looking to go out big, go pretty deep in the playoffs. We have a pretty good shot here and this is the last memories that we have in high school sports. We are just looking to win.”
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