Aynor softball set for winner-take-all state title tilt

The Aynor softball team jumped off the bench before Shelby Cox’s home run Wednesday had cleared the right-centerfield fence.

The Blue Jackets players and coaches knew the second it left the bat that it was gone. Nearly two full hours before Cox and her teammates closed out a Game 2 victory in the best-of-three series against Andrew Jackson, Aynor was feeling it.

“It’s like the intensity was like no other,” coach Sandie Jones said of the home run and its aftermath.

The Blue Jackets will need to have it again on Friday.

They’ll face the Volunteers a final time, with the difference between winner and loser separated by history. One will add a state championship to its coffers; the other will be left to wonder what could have been in an already dynamic season.

Each team has already won at least 27 games, with Aynor recording No. 31 Wednesday. Both teams had an all-state selection – Hannah Seaver for the Blue Jackets and Hannah Cobb for Andrew Jackson. There will likely be three North-South All-Star honorees between the teams when those rosters are released in the coming days.

But as Volunteers’ coach Steve Middleton pointed out after his team won Monday, nothing is certain when it comes to a winner-take-all scenario due to the huge number of variables.

“You don’t want to go to Friday,” he said after the series opener. “Anything could happen. You could have a line drive go off a pitcher’s leg in the first inning. We’ll take our best shot.”

Oddly enough, it had been a while since the Class AA title series even went to a third game. The past four champions and six of the last seven have all done so in two games.

The only other time a neutral site was needed – as it will be when Andrew Jackson and Aynor play at 6:30 p.m. Friday at South Florence – was in 2010 when Waccamaw defeated Crescent.

It means both teams come into it with a sense of desperation similar to what the Blue Jackets felt the in the last game.

“I came into [Wednesday] knowing this could possibly be the last time playing with this team,” Seaver said. “I said I was going to enjoy it and make the most of it.”

Seaver hit a pair of home runs, including a third-inning grand slam.

It helped create Friday’s ultra-meaningful game, one that Aynor comes into with excitement at both immediate and long-term levels.

“It tells me that our program has come a long way,” Jones said. “I remember, even not too long ago, that we didn’t even a lot of times make the playoffs. We struggled.”

Those days are gone. And the Blue Jackets find themselves on the cusp of the ultimate reason to celebrate.

This story was originally published May 21, 2015 at 5:26 PM with the headline "Aynor softball set for winner-take-all state title tilt."