Opp Dixie Majors win state
Published 12:01 am Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Tired and spent, Opp Dixie Majors coach Zack Spann couldn’t really find the words to describe how he felt not hours after his baseball team beat East Alabama 18-0 to win the 2012 Dixie Majors State Championship in Selma on Monday.
“It was exciting,” Spann said. “It was almost like it was surreal, you thought you were going to wake up from a dream or something.
“We’ve been wanting a state championship for a while since we won it (in 2008),” he said. “It feels great to finally get it.”
This is Spann’s first season as the head coach of the Opp Dixie Majors, which included three players from the 2008 state championship pre-majors 16-year-old team. This is the first Dixie Majors state title for Opp.
“We just played our best late,” Spann said. “We peaked at the right time. We’re a good team. We’ve got a lot of talent.”
In the championship game, Opp’s Britt Wilson, who finished 2-0 on the mound, pitched his team to the win. Alex Stevens also finished the tournament 2-0; Brady Jowers had a good outing, Spann said; and Josh Thompson finished the tournament 1-0.
Additionally, Spann said Wilson was one home run away from completing the hitting cycle.
Opp beat Oxford-Hobson City 10-0 on Thursday; Southeast Montgomery 10-2, and Morgan County 7-3 on Saturday; Red Bay 5-3 on Sunday in the semifinals; and then East Alabama 18-0 in the championship.
“It was the largest total we’ve won by this whole tournament,” Spann said. “I don’t think we made one error. Our offense was the difference. We came out and scored a lot of runs. In the closer games, we got clutch hits when we needed them.
“To win state my first year as coach is pretty incredible to me,” he said.
The three players who were on the Opp Pre-Majors State Championship team are Wilson, Thompson and Zach Sasser.