Champion brings plenty of playoff experience into series with Panthers

Boerne Champion enters the fourth round of the playoffs this week against Liberty Hill and deep postseason runs are nothing new for the Chargers.

Last year, Champion went three rounds before losing, and two years ago, the Chargers won the region and played six rounds before falling in the state semifinals.

Some of the current players have been part of all those postseason runs to make it 13 rounds of playoff baseball so far in the past three seasons and Chargers head coach Ben Woodchick said that experience has served them well.

“They know how to play playoff baseball and they’re going out there and executing at a high level like we’ve had to do all year because of the district we’re in,” Woodchick said.

Champion’s pitching staff is deep. They used three arms to close out Sharyland last week and in their previous series with Mac, they threw three different pitchers that went the whole way in each game, but Woodchick said they had others ready to go.

“We had three other guys that could have been out there too,” he said. “We have a lot of quality arms. We’re blessed with that, and our kids know that and they’re ready to go.”

AJ Grizzaffi is 3-0 in the postseason this year with wins in each round, Sawyer Smith is 2-1 and Pearce Kelly earned a win in their only Game 3 of the playoffs this year against Mac and also picked up a save last week against Sharyland.

The Chargers are 6-1 in the playoffs and have swept Cedar Park and Mission Sharyland, while going 2-1 against MacArthur.

After giving up 4 and 5 runs to Cedar Park in the first round, the Chargers only surrendered 2 runs over the next four games, one run to Mac and one run to Sharyland in Game 1s. In between they played shutout baseball in two straight contests.

The Chargers have also hit well in the postseason and scored 60 runs in seven games.

Aidan Smith hit a bases- clearing double against the Brahmas to spark the team and then knocked one out of the park in their close-out game against Sharyland.

Also, in that close-out contest with the Rattlers, Jaedyn Yamaguchi and Owen Kuhl both smacked ground-rule doubles that bounced over the fence and Grizzaffi legged out a triple.

In their 18-5 win over Cedar Park, Champion had 15 hits, including a home run by Sawyer Smith, and 7 doubles, 2 each from Kuhl and Yamaguchi.

In their 14-4 win over Cedar Park, Kuhl knocked out 2 triples, while Garland Whitehead and Cal Isley had one triple each.

Austin Garritano tripled against MacArthur, while Aidan Smith, Cal Isley and Kuhl all tripled in their closeout game with Mac.

Liberty Hill is 6-2 in the playoffs and swept 26-5A Pieper in the opening round. They lost their opening-round games to Eagle Pass Winn and Sharyland Pioneer but rallied to win the final two in each series, so they’ve gone 4-0 in elimination games in the past two rounds.

At this point of the season Woodchick said all the teams are good and the Panthers are no exception.

“They’re a physical team and have a couple of power arms and a crafty lefty,” he said. “They play good defense and are athletic in the field. They swing it well throughout the order, and they don’t have many holes in the lineup, if any, and they have some power guys in the middle.”

Champion went 12-4 in 26-5A and earned a share of the district title this year, while Liberty Hill won their district title at 12-2.

Woodchick expects a dogfight this week and said regardless of who they play, they have to focus on playing Charger baseball.

“The further you go in the playoffs your opponent’s get a little less familiar, so we have to continue playing our ball,” he said. “We’re starting to play some schools that are good but not as familiar and so we have to play our brand of baseball.”