New Hope High School senior baseball player Will Godfrey doesn’t need a lot of time to recall the biggest hit of his baseball career.
“The home run against Oxford will always be the highlight of my baseball career,” Godfrey said. “To have that hit against one of our main rivals — to do that at home and have it win the game — that is exciting.”
Godfrey homered in the home half of the seventh inning to lift New Hope to a 1-0 victory against Oxford on May 14 in Game 2 of a three-game series for the Mississippi High School Activities Association Class 5A North State championship.
In a season full of highlights and big plays, New Hope’s final win of 2015 is The Dispatch’s Top Sporting Event for 2015.
Two days later, Oxford took a 10-3 victory to capture the North State title. A week later, Oxford won the state championship.
New Hope, which won the 2013 and 2014 state championships, finished 25-7 last season.
“It was a special team,” New Hope coach Lee Boyd said. “Each year, you have a team that forms an identity. That team was not going to rest on the two state championships. Even though we had a lot of new starters, this team wanted to leave its own legacy. I am proud of them for that.”
New Hope dropped all three matchups to Oxford in the regular season, but it breezed through the first three rounds of the playoffs and had a nine-game winning streak snapped when Oxford earned a 3-2 victory in eight innings in Game 1 in Oxford.
New Hope led 1-0 and grabbed a 2-1 lead in the top of the eighth when Payton Lane doubled and scored on a misplay in the outfield.
Josh Stillman entered in relief and got a double-play ball to get New Hope out of the seventh. In the eighth, Stillman was a strike away from victory, but Ben Bianco hit a two-run home run for the victory.
“It was the hardest loss I ever had to deal with,” Stillman said. “We played well and were in a position. I think it said a lot for the character of this team that we were able to bounce back a couple of days later and win.”
Instead of being demoralized, Boyd expected the Trojans to come out fighting. New Hope responded, as Stillman pitched a two-hitter and struck out eight. He saw his 94-pitch effort rewarded when Godfrey’s blast cleared the left-field wall.
“That run around the bases will be something I remember for the rest of my life,” Godfrey said.
Follow Dispatch sports writer Scott Walters on Twitter @dispatchscott
Scott was sports editor for The Dispatch.
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