Senior Jack Bosworth holds the District 7-AA championship trophy along with his classmates.
photo by Greg Davick
They finally got to put a little icing on the cake at Chattanooga Christian Wednesday night.
The Charger baseball team had cruised through its regular-season schedule in District 7-AA without a loss. And now they've added the District 7-AA tournament championship to that regular-season title following an 11-1 whipping of Signal Mountain in the finals.
CCS improves to 26-2 with its 18th straight win. The Chargers will host the Upperman Bees on Monday in the Region 4-A semifinals. Signal Mountain is now 15-13 and will have to travel to Murfreesboro for a game with District 8-A champ Central Magnet.
But on a day when the sky was blue and temperatures perfect for an early-evening game, the Chargers looked impressive as they finished off another opponent in impressive fashion.
"We've been working all week on learning how to finish each inning strong and we were able to do that today," said winning coach Joel Johnson following a few team pictures.
"We weren't proud of how we played on Saturday, so we've been dying to get out here today. Zach Mercer was just himself today. He kept them guessing as Josh Taylor did a good job of calling the right pitch. And we got a key double play when we needed it, so our defense was much better today," the coach added.
Mercer was the winning pitcher and improved to 8-1 with the game that ended with two outs in the bottom of the fifth.
Mercer finished with a four hitter, half of which came in Signal's first inning when the Eagles scored their only run. He finished with five strikeouts, one walk and one hit batter.
He also reached base three times with a walk, a single and a hit by pitch in the fifth. He also drove in a run with a second-inning grounder to second while getting a second RBI with a single in the fourth.
"That was a good win for us. I thought we came out on fire and made the plays when we needed to," he began.
The Eagles struck first with a run in the first, Jake Carmichael ripping the first pitch of the game up the middle for a single. He was sacrificed to second by a Jackson Etter bunt before Garrett Hensley put the visitors on top with a single to center.
Mercer wasn't the least bit fazed by that early run.
"I've been pitching long enough to know that you can't let one run affect how you pitch. I didn't give it a second thought," he added.
While the Eagles scored first, it didn't take the Chargers long to regain control as they sent eight hitters to the plate in the second inning, scoring four runs on a walk, four singles and Mercer's groundout.
Nobody scored in the third, but the Chargers batted around in the fourth to put the game out of reach with six runs. They ended it an inning later with one more score.
"We just have to forget this one and move on," said Signal Mountain coach Josh Gandy shortly after the game ended.
"Seth didn't have his best stuff, but I was proud of the way he battled. I thought we started pressing after the second inning as we just tried to do too much at the plate.
"The Mercer kid pitched a good game as he got ahead in the count and threw strikes, but he's a competitor," he said in praise of the winning pitcher.
Eight of the nine CCS starters had at least one hit with Brandon Mason and Jared Miller collecting two each.
Mason reached all four times and had two singles, one run batted in while scoring twice. Miller had a single in the third before scoring and he also stroked a three-run homer in the fourth.
Mason's two-out single in the fifth got things started for the winning run. He stole second, went to third on a wild pitch and scored when a long fly to center by Taylor was dropped as the CCS left fielder sprinted home to end the game.
Hensley was the only Eagle with two hits. Carmichael and Etter had the other two.
SIGNAL MOUNTAIN 100 00 -- 1 4 3
CHATTANOOGA CHRISTIAN 040 61 -- 11 9 2
Wicker, Tragesser (4) and Feemster; Mercer and Taylor.