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The most important part of a championship banner is the year.
Just about every day of the three years leading up to its first senior night on Friday, Seaforth’s baseball team would walk past their conference championship banner in the basketball gym, and it wouldn’t have a single one.
But, after beating Bartlett Yancey, 3-0, Friday night, the banner will no longer be without its defining trait.
Seaforth clinched its first Mid-Carolina 1A/2A conference title with the win, suffocating the Buccaneers behind a one-hit shutout from pitcher Anders Johansson.
“I’m so proud of our guys,” head coach Landon Jones said. “They’ve earned it. We went through lumps — three wins to 13 wins and then taking the conference championship tonight.”
Coming into the matchup with Bartlett Yancey, Seaforth had already secured the conference co-champion title. The Hawks beat Bartlett Yancey in the first meeting on April 23, 6-1, and they needed to win the second game to take sole possession of the conference title and secure priority seeding in the state tournament.
The decisive game began as a pitchers’ battle in the opening innings. To start the game, Johansson threw two strikeouts as the Buccaneers went three up and three down at the plate.
“My fastball (worked), especially my off-speed,” Johansson said. “Curveball, I can locate almost every pitch, and (for the) changeup, the down and away movement got a lot of people.”
Bartlett Yancey pitcher Joshua Smith and the defense behind him also blanked Seaforth at the plate in the first inning, making all three outs in the field.
But, after Johansson pitched a repeat of the first inning in the second — two strikeouts in three batters — Seaforth broke the ice with their bats.
With two outs in the bottom of the second inning, the Hawks cranked out five straight hits and brought in their only three runs of the game.
Seaforth didn’t do much at the plate after that, recording just three more hits for the rest of the game. The Hawks’ fate was left to Johansson and the rest of the defense, who made sure the poor batting didn’t come back to hurt them.
“My mindset all week was, ‘I’mma be a dog,’” Johansson said. “’I’m going to come out here, and I’m going to go crazy, I’m going to be myself, and I’m going to throw as hard as I can and do what I can to win this game.’”
After the second inning, Johansson didn’t throw as many strikeouts as he did in the beginning of the game, but he made it hard for the Buccaneers to hit outside of the range of his backing defenders. Whether it was freshman right fielder Bauer Bowling sliding past the right foul line for a catch, freshman Anthony Landano diving in the dirt to stop a ground ball or sophomore Jaedyn Rader throwing a laser from third base to first base, Seaforth did just about everything necessary to keep Bartlett Yancey scoreless.
“We knew that coming into this (Bartlett Yancey) would hit the ball,” Rader said. “But, (Johansson) shoved, and we had his back.”
Bartlett Yancey’s only hit of the game came in the top of the third inning, and for Johansson, a one-hit shutout in the final regular season of his high school career was only right.
“(Johansson) set the tone for our team,” Jones said. “I’m just so proud of him. He’s a guy who’s earned it, who’s taken the lumps and had to deal with some hard things these past three years, and he gets to reap the benefits. We did it on his back tonight.”
Finishing with a program-best 17-5 overall record and being one of the best teams in the 2A East classification, Seaforth has a chance to make some noise in its first state playoff berth. The Hawks will likely open the playoffs with home field advantage as they’re conference champions and a top 10 team in the NCHSAA’s 2A East RPI standings as of Sunday.
“Everyone’s known that we can be great,” Jones said. “I’ve just preached to them the motto, ‘If you can be that means you’re not yet.’ They’ve bought in, and we’re finally getting a taste of what it looks like for us to reach our goals.”
Regardless of what happens from here, 2024 will always be remembered in Seaforth’s baseball history. For anyone who forgets, they’ll just have to look at the wall in the basketball gym.
