By Doug Hall
Tennessee Director of Scouting

MURFREESBORO, TN – The third and final game of the day at Middle Tennessee State’s Reece Smith , Jr Field featured a matchup of Farragut and Houston in a battle for the Class AAA State Championship. 

Both starting pitchers established themselves early as Farragut’s Patrick Raby struck out three, and Houston’s Connor Hayman struck out four over the first two innings as the game moved to the third in a scoreless tie.

Farragut struck first in the top of the third when Duncan Pence delivered a two-out RBI double down the left field line to score Roy Mutta for a 1-0 lead.

After Houston failed to score in their half of the third, the Farragut offense went on the attack in the fourth.

Sam Schulze led off the inning with a single up the middle, and Cole Morgan reached base safely on an error on a sacrifice bunt to put runners on first and second with no outs.  DH John Painter drove in Schulze with a double to left, and one out later Roy Mutta lined an RBI single up the middle to give Farragut a 3-0 lead.  The final run of the inning came on Chase Fullington’s sacrifice fly to score Painter as the game headed to the bottom of the fourth with Farragut leading 4-0.

The rest of the game story centered on Raby.  The Vanderbilt commit used his 86-88 mph fastball to shut down the Houston offense on just one hit over the final four innings.  Raby fired a complete game, three-hit shutout with six strikeouts to lead Farragut to the Class AAA Title with a 4-0 victory.