For a moment in the sixth inning, it seemed that Miller baseball, as it so often has over the past few years, was going to find a way.
Benedictine held on though as Miller’s string of three-straight state championships — that dates back to 2017 and was only interrupted last year by the season’s cancellation — ended with a 3-2 loss in the VISAA Division I semifinals.
With the bases loaded after Henry Cooke’s ground rule double that followed Landon Abrahamson’s end-of-the-bat single that broke up Benedictine senior Connor Handy’s no-hit bid (Handy struck out 10 in the win), Miller was one timely hit away from taking control. Especially when Abrahamson emphatically crossed the plate on a passed ball.
“We had a chance there to do some damage there but we’ve faced (Handy) three times and he’s battled every time,” said Miller coach Billy Wagner. “It wasn’t surprising that it was 3-2 (against Benedictine), it’s been like that all year long.”
That critical hit never came as Daniel Lingle came in for the Cadets and delivered a strikeout. After Miller went down in order in the seventh, Benedictine celebrated a berth in the state title game and the Cadets’ third one-run win over the Mavericks this season. Miller beat Benedictine 9-1 back on April 23, but that regular season win was bookended by 4-3 losses to the Cadets in late March and a few days after the Mavs’ victory.
Jay Woolfolk’s third-inning solo home run to deep center — approximately a 347-foot shot based on the centerfield fence markings — proved to be the difference maker for Benedictine. Woolfolk, a UVa baseball and football commitment, also walked and scored in the first inning scramble created by a pair of Miller errors.
Despite Woolfolk’s blast, Miller pitcher T.J. Brooks was impressive on the mound for his first state tournament start as the JMU commitment fought through some early errors behind him that gave the Cadets a 2-0 lead. Brooks got particularly locked in in the fifth where he struck out the side.
“He had to compete through some errors and he held them right there,” Wagner said. “He didn’t give them anything else, he gave up two hits and he did what he needed to do. Our pitching staff has pitched really well all year long, I was very proud of T.J.”
Brooks’ improvement as the game went on — was indicative of Miller as a whole settling into the game. It showed at the plate too where a perfectly-executed hit-and-run in the fourth by Laken Tignor scored Abrahamson. The Mavs have definitely been in some big games this year, but very few players on Miller’s roster had been asked to deliver in big state tournament spots outside of Jacob Exum, Henry Hardie and Lucas Adam.
“They’d never been part of that and you could tell they were overwhelmed a little bit at the plate,” Wagner said. “But I thought it was a great learning opportunity, I thought they battled — they fought back.”
Miller loses Hardie, Adam, Chaz Harvey and Drue Hackenberg to graduation, but a huge pack of juniors led by Nathan Fink, Tignor, Brooks, Cooke, Abrahamson and Exum are slated to return next year. Throw in talented sophomores like Noah Murray and Miller is poised to get a shot to come back to Shepherd Stadium in 2021, now with some first-hand experience of what the state tournament limelight is like.
But for now, the Mavericks can celebrate the chance they had to play this season after it was taken away in 2019.
“This opportunity should be cherished, we did so many great things and I was so proud of these guys,” Wagner said. “The ability to come out here and play you take that for granted and then when it’s taken away — we’re blessed to be out here.”
