KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Liberty North Eagles baseball team is riding high off their state championship win.
"I'm not ready to get away from high school baseball yet," senior pitcher Aaron Lewis said.
The Eagles took home the Class 6 State Title, defeating Blue Springs South 11-5.
"It was special, I mean I just keep going back to the word special, but man it was really awesome," Eagles head baseball coach Ryan Stegall said.
The championship win marks the first ever state baseball title for Liberty North.
"I mean, it was super cool," Lewis said. "We all knew that we could do it, but it was just a matter of if we did it or not."
The Eagles' championship run consisted of three come-from-behind wins.
"We had three walk offs before the championship game," Stegall said.
One of the Eagles heavy hitters belted a bottom-of-the-7th-inning grand slam to force extra innings and ultimately send Liberty North to the final four.
"I went up to coach and he said, 'If you see a pitch you like, take it,'" Eagles senior first baseman Landon McGinness said. "I got the pitch I liked and the rest is history."
The script was different in the championship game where the Eagles didn't need to rally. A five-run second inning - all scored with two outs - did the trick.
With 10 seniors, the Eagles have 11 underclassman returning who are determined to do it all over again next season.
"We've already talked about it, the boys are all, hey we're going to run it back type deal, but we got a majority of them, like I said 11 of 21 coming back, so feel pretty good about it," Stegall said.
—