By Jamie McBee/The Spartanburg Sports Report
The Boiling Springs Bulldogs baseball team claimed the first ever Region III-5A baseball championship on Tuesday night with a 6-2 victory over Spartanburg at Duncan Park and capped off the celebration on Wednesday night with a 5-4 victory over the Vikings in front of their home crowd on Senior Night. The 5-4 victory on Wednesday night came on a bases loaded walk to Dawson Taylor that scored senior Michael Bollinger.
It was only fitting that the Bulldogs came from behind to win on senior night because it was a locker room comment from senior shortstop Mason Streater that Bulldogs head baseball coach Jeff Lipscomb says really showed him the mentality of this team. “I remember we lost our first game of the year at the IP Baseball Classic and I was trying to tell the kids it’s alright and sometimes you lose games in baseball. It was then that Streater stood up and made the statement that ‘We ain’t losing, we’re not losing anymore’ and for a young man to make a statement like that it just showed me the mentality of this team. This team is going to come out and compete every night and that’s exactly what we did tonight.”
Coach Lipscomb, who also is the running backs coach on the football team, said that you can just tell the impact that the success of the football team has had with the baseball team. “Those guys have helped teach our baseball guys what it takes to win. They’ve taken that mentality you saw on the gridiron on Friday nights and brought it to the baseball diamond.” When asked about the impact of the seniors on this years team Coach Lipscomb said, “This is a special group of guys and as long as I have those guys on my team I feel like we always have a chance to win.”
The region championship is the first one in baseball for the Bulldogs since the 2008 season, which was also the year that Boiling Springs claimed their first ever baseball state championship. When asked after the game what he felt about the comparisons being made to this team and the 2008 team Coach Lipscomb responded with a slight laugh, “Ask me that again in a month and I’ll tell you exactly how I feel.”
