‘We’ll be back.’ Resurrection comes up shy of a title, but sky is the limit for 2022
The Resurrection Catholic baseball team fell short of its first Class 1A state championship on Thursday, but there’s plenty of reason to believe the Eagles will be back at Trustmark Park in 2022 with another shot at a trophy.
RCS (27-7) got enough pitching to hang in against Tupelo Christian (25-10) during the Class 1A state title series, but the bats never quite provided the timely hit the Eagles needed.
Tupelo Christian topped RCS 4-0 on Thursday at Trustmark Park for a two-game sweep to clinch the program’s second state championship and first since 2016.
While Tupelo Christian took the field with plenty of juniors and seniors, RCS coach Johnny Olsen had a lineup that had only one senior — second baseman Will Clemens.
“We play a lot of young guys, a lot of sophomores, juniors,” Olsen said. “The core of our team is basically young kids. We’ll be back.”
One of those underclassmen, junior J.T. Schnoor, put in a solid effort out of the bullpen on Thursday with his fastball topping out in the mid-80s.
He allowed two earned runs over 3 2/3 innings, striking out two and holding a tough Tupelo Christian lineup to a pair of runs.
“I felt pretty good. That’s the most I’ve thrown the whole year coming off (elbow) surgery,” Schnoor said. “I wanted the ball.”
RCS put two men on in the bottom of the seventh, but Tupelo Christian pitcher Noah Foster finished off the shutout by forcing Clemens to pop out to right field to end the game.
“(Foster) hadn’t thrown a whole lot. I’ve mostly used him at short,” TCPS coach Drew Dillard said. “We’re a lot better defense when he’s out there, but he stepped up big time. He’s become more of a pitcher. He was the difference in the ballgame, and he gave us a chance to win.”
RCS baseball continues to build
Once the game was over, Schnoor and the rest of his teammates had to endure watching the Eagles celebrating with a dog pile in the middle of the infield.
“I think we know what it feels like now,” he said. “We saw them. Next year, that’s where we want to be.”
Olsen will return his entire pitching staff next year, including Game 1 starter Cole Tingle and Game 2 starter Max Askew. The RCS starting lineup Thursday included one freshman, three sophomores and four juniors.
Schnoor believes this week’s title series defeat was just one more step to getting the program to where it wants to be — Class 1A state champs.
“We’ve been building up for five years now,” Schnoor said. “Coach Olsen has played a major role in getting us to where we are now. We fell short this year.
“We know what it feels like to be here. We’ll come back next year and get it done.”
Johnny Olsen has reason for optimism
RCS had eight hits on Thursday, but could never came with the big hit to break through against Foster.
“We didn’t get a break,” Olsen said. “You have to hand it to them. They’re a good club, play very good defense. You can’t say anything about their pitching. Their pitching was great. We didn’t get a break, but of course we hurt ourselves in situations. When you don’t score a run, you don’t win. That’s tough to do. We just didn’t get a hit. I thought we played hard.”
While Olsen was disappointed his team couldn’t get it done this year, he heaped praise on his young roster.
“We’re just going to keep working,” the former Pascagoula coach said. “We’ve just to get bigger and stronger and keep plugging away. I have so much faith and confidence in these kids. I love them to death. I wouldn’t rather have another bunch.”
This story was originally published June 3, 2021 at 6:10 PM.
