LORETTO, Tenn. – After finishing as the No. 3 seed in the District 9-AA regular season, the Cascade Champions (20-8, 5-3) upset No. 2 seed Summertown twice and No. 1 seed Loretto once on the road to win the program’s second District 9 Title in four seasons.

Cascade used a six-run third inning to take control of the District 9-AA Championship and coast to an eventual 9-1 win on Saturday over the Eagles (21-11, 6-2) at Gary Lamm Field one day after using 10 innings to take down top-seeded Loretto.

“This is by far one of the toughest districts in the state. Of course, you have the Murfreesboro gauntlet, but next to that, this is probably the next toughest in Middle Tennessee,” Cascade Head Coach Travis Sheffield said postgame on Saturday, “We talked about checkpoints on the road to Murfreesboro at the beginning of the year, and just getting out of the district was the biggest checkpoint. We circled it, and had a mission. To win it on the road – traveling 90 minutes to Summertown, back-to-back two hour drives to Loretto, we didn’t pull into the driveway at Cascade until after midnight on Friday only to have to turn around for another two hour drive today – it’s a big deal. The game that these guys put up tonight, you have to have mental toughness, and I think mental toughness is what we brought to this tournament.”

After throwing 34 pitches across two innings on Thursday to secure the extra-innings win at Summertown in the first round, Jayden Hathcock got the start on the mound for the Champions in the final, pitching a complete 7.0 innings and giving up just one earned run on six hits and two walks while striking out eight batters on 109 pitches.

“He [Hathcock] is just built for the big games,” Sheffield said, “He has no fear. He goes up there and does his thing day in and day out. He doesn’t let opponents deviate him from what he’s trying to do. He goes up there and attacks hitters, attacks the zone.”

Summertown took a 1-0 lead in the top of the third when Aiden Perez doubled home Camden Staggs, but the Champions wasted no time getting more than one run back in the home half. 

Jordan Childress led off and was hit by a pitch from Jon Kolbi Stanley, and then Caleb Crouch delivered an RBI-triple with a line drive in the left-center field gap. Summertown’s Cason Blackwood was forced to exit the game after pulling his hamstring trying to reach for the ball, and the Eagles also brought in a lefty, Knox Calton, for Stanley on the mound to face the left-handed duo of Wickey Parker and Jayden Hathcock.

Parker wasted no time, hammering a hanging breaking ball on the first pitch he saw down the right field line for his sixth home run of the season, giving Cascade the lead for good, 3-1. Hathcock followed up with a hard-hit single to right, then Xykaiah Dixon walked to prompt another pitching change.

Thomas Demartelaere singled to load the bases, River Maddox delivered a perfectly placed sacrifice-bunt to take a 4-1 lead, and then Daymien Maldonado delivered a 2-RBI single into center field to extend the lead to 6-1.

Cascade tacked on two more runs in the fourth thanks to a Hathcock RBI-triple to drive home Parker followed by a Dixon RBI-single to take an 8-1 lead.

As Hathcock continued to dominate on the mound, Cascade tacked on one more insurance run in the bottom of the sixth with River Maddox delivering his second RBI of the night into center field to score Dixon from second.

Hathcock finished off the win in the top of the seventh with a 1-4-3 double play, and the celebrations followed for the Cascade Champions.

At the plate for Cascade, Caleb Crouch was 1-for-4 with an RBI and a triple, Wickey Parker went 4-for-4 with two RBIs, a double, and a home run, and Hathcock finished 2-for-4 with an RBI and a triple. Dixon went 1-for-3 with an RBI and a walk, Demartelaere was 1-for-3, and Maddox finished 1-for-2 with two RBIs and a walk. Maldonado also went 1-for-4 with two RBIs. 

In the 1-0 game on Friday against No. 1 seeded Loretto (14-11, 6-2), Cascade used 10 innings to take down the Mustangs, 4-3, and advance to the title game thanks to a suicide squeeze from Wickey Parker that drove home the go-ahead run in the top of the 10th.

“It was probably about three weeks ago, but we were in a similar situation, and I told him [Parker] to not be surprised if I ever bunt him, and he said he’ll be ready,” Sheffield said postgame, “He’s just a dawg, and he competes. I knew he’d get one down.”

Parker also came on in relief starting in the bottom of the sixth, pitching the final 4.1 innings and giving up just two hits and no runs with two walks and nine strikeouts against a vaunted Mustangs lineup to secure the win. 

“When he had 25 pitches [in the bottom of the seventh], I went out there to have a small discussion about maybe saving him for Saturday, and he said ‘Coach, if you want to win tonight, keep me in.’” Sheffield said, “I looked at Jayden [Hathcock] and said that he’s got it all by himself tomorrow, and he said ‘I’m good Coach, I’ve done it all year long,’ so I knew then that we were good.”

Cascade broke the seal against Loretto star Mason Tidwell in the top of the third thanks to a one-out triple from Daymien Maldonado followed by a Jordan Childress RBI-groundout. Loretto responded by plating two runs to take their only lead of the night in the home half, but left the bases loaded. This allowed Wickey Parker to work a leadoff walk followed by Thomas Demartelaere working a 2-out walk to set the table for River Maddox. Maddox delivered the biggest hit of the weekend with a 2-RBI triple into the right-center field gap to give the Champs a 3-2 lead in the fourth.

Tidwell finished with just 5.0 innings pitched, giving up three earned runs on three hits and three walks with nine strikeouts on 92 pitches.

Loretto eventually found the tying run on a passed ball in the sixth inning, and then neither team scored until Cascade’s squeeze in the top of the 10th. Parker struck out the side despite giving up a Tidwell single and a Casen Springer walk, stranding both the tying and winning run on base with a trio of strikeouts to punch Cascade’s ticket to the Region 5-AA Tournament.

“Earlier in the season, he was coming out of the bullpen as the closer until AJ [Manus] went down,” Sheffield said about Parker, “Honestly, this is his best role. He flourishes when he’s coming out of the bullpen in these tight situations.”

At the plate for Cascade, Childress led off going 2-for-5 with an RBI and a double, Parker went 1-for-4 with an RBI and a walk, and Dixon finished 2-for-3 with two walks. Maddox went 1-for-4 with two RBIs and a triple, and Maldonado finished 1-for-4 with a triple.

For the entire weekend, Wickey Parker led Cascade at the plate, finishing an astonishing 7-for-12 with seven RBIs, two walks, a double, and a home run on top of his impressive pitching performance against Loretto. 

Cascade will take on Lewis County at Decatur County Riverside on Friday night in the Region 5-AA semifinals with first-pitch TBD.