New Hope High School baseball coach Lee Boyd calls it “a fitting ending.”
New Hope and Oxford have played eight seasons as baseball rivals. The meetings have even extended to the postseason in 2014, 2015 and now 2017.
“In eight seasons, I feel like I have coached about 100 games against them,” Boyd said. “They are always intense and fun. These are two of the elite programs in the state. The stakes are always high.”
Realignment will send the two schools in different directions next season.
But first, New Hope (21-12) and Oxford (29-5) meet for the Mississippi High School Activities Association (MHSAA) Class 5A North State championship.
The best-of-three series starts at 7 Thursday night at Edwin Moak Field in Oxford. Game 2 is at 7 Friday night at New Hope, while a third game (if needed) will be at 7 Saturday night, back in Oxford.
“If you play Oxford in the playoffs, you know you have had a good season,” New Hope senior Thomas Stevens said. “That means you have won some games and they have won some games. We hope to meet them again.”
Stevens spoke after New Hope beat Oxford 8-5 in a regular-season meeting on April 11 at New Hope. Oxford had won the two previous meetings, while winning all three matchups in 2016.
“It certainly seems like they have had our number of late,” Boyd said. “Beating them in the regular season was huge. It turned our season around. After that, everybody just worked a little bit harder. The guys realized our capabilities and what we can accomplish.”
Boyd admits when his team was 9-10, even he had doubts. It took a little longer than usual for the coaches to break through to this year’s Trojans.
“You reach back to your tradition,” Boyd said. “We have had former players come back and speak to the team. Each year, the senior class doesn’t want to be the senior class that doesn’t live up to the tradition. Fortunately, it started coming together for us at the right time.”
New Hope has won 12 of 14 games since that start. The lone regular-season loss during that stretch was to a Houston squad fighting for the Class 4A state championship.
In the playoffs, New Hope swept Lake Cormorant and Neshoba Central before taking a series from Germantown, two games to one.
New Hope had scored four or fewer runs in four straight playoff games before erupting for eight runs in an 8-5 win at Germantown Monday night.
“Really proud of the guys for going on the road and taking care of business in a hostile environment,” Boyd said. “Germantown had put Saltillo out, so we knew they had a great team. After the loss (a 6-2 setback Saturday night), we came back really determined and played really well on the road to advance.”
After rolling through the first two rounds of the playoffs, Oxford was also forced to a third game by Lewisburg in the third round.
Oxford beat Lewisburg 11-0, before falling 2-1 in the second game. In the third game, Lewisburg scored seven runs in the top of the first inning before Oxford rallied for an 18-7 victory.
“They just have an outstanding team,” Boyd said. “We had been looking for a confidence boost in the series. Winning the last game really helped change our mind-set. We will have more confidence.”
New Hope won the 2013 and 2014 state championships. Oxford then won the 2015 and 2016 titles. In 2014, New Hope beat Oxford in the North State finals. A year later, Oxford returned the favor.
Despite being heavy favorites in 2015, Oxford still struggled to put New Hope away. The Chargers needed a walk-off home run in the eighth inning to win 3-2 at home. New Hope won 1-0 at home to force a third game.
Clearly back in the underdog role this season, the Trojans know what it will take.
“We really had nothing to lose (in 2015),” Boyd said. “We gave them quite a challenge. We have a handful of players who can look back on that experience. There are some similarities.”
Follow Dispatch sports writer Scott Walters on Twitter @dispatchscott
Scott was sports editor for The Dispatch.
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