By Doug Hall
Tennessee Director of Scouting

MURFREESBORO, TN – The second game of the day at Middle Tennessee State’s Reece Smith , Jr Field featured two teams well familiar with each other as Knoxville Catholic and Christian Academy of Knoxville squared off in the Class AA State Championship Game.

Knoxville Catholic got on the board quickly as they struck for an unearned run off of CAK starter Trey Hinton.  Blaine Harrison began the game reaching safely on an infield error, and John Mark Broussard followed with a sacrifice bunt to move Harrison into scoring position with one out.  Adam Reed stroked a single to left, moving Harrison to third base, and Austin Kearney lifted a fly ball to right field for a sacrifice fly that scored Harrison for the early 1-0 lead.

That lead was short-lived as CAK scored a run of their own in the bottom half of the inning when Brice McMillan led off with a base hit, and then two consecutive Knoxville Catholic errors proceeded load the bases with no outs.  Knoxville Catholic starting pitcher Ethan Elliott managed to minimize the damage, however, allowing just one run on Josh Johnson’s sacrifice fly as the game headed to the second inning tied at one.

Knoxville Catholic went down quietly in the top of the second, but CAK plated another run in the bottom of the inning when David Zimmerman led off with a single and scored two outs later on an RBI single from John Sharpe for a 2-1 lead.

After a scoreless top half of the third for Knoxville Catholic, the CAK offense went right back to work.  After the first two batters of the inning were retired, Josh Johnson singled to left field, Parker Cochran doubled to drive in Johnson, and David Zimmerman reached on an error to bring Colton Norrod to the plate with two runners on.  Norrod doubled down the left field line to dive in two more and give CAK a 5-1 lead.

Each team went quietly in the fourth, but Knoxville Catholic would mount their comeback in the top half of the fifth as they got singles from Will Martinez and Blaine Harrison and took advantage of four CAK errors in the inning to plate three runs to cut the lead to 5-4.

The game remained that way until the top of the seventh when John Mark Broussard led off with a single for Knoxville Catholic.  Adam Reed bunted him down to second base, and Austin Kearney drove in his second run of the game with a single to left field to knot the game at 5-5.

The bottom of the seventh began innocently as Elliott retired the first two CAK batters, but DH Josh Johnson doubled and was replaced by pinch runner Justin Feist.  Parker Cochran followed with his third hit of the day, a single to center field that scored Feist to give Christian Academy of Knoxville the Class AA State Title in dramatic walk-off fashion.