West Greene baseball celebrates first ever district championship

GREENEVILLE, Tenn. (WCYB) — Just three seasons ago, West Greene baseball won only three games in the entire year - but if you fast forward to Tuesday night, that can all be forgotten.

Following a 20-win season, the Buffaloes found themselves in the District 1-AA championship game after entering as the No. 3 seed. After taking out Chuckey-Doak, West Greene was eyeing top seed South Greene to be its next victim.

While rain played a major factor throughout the weekend, it carried into Monday - forcing the title game to be suspended and picked back up on Tuesday with West Greene holding a 7-3 lead in the fourth inning.

And on Tuesday, the Buffaloes finished the job.

After plating a run in both the fourth and fifth innings, West Greene's lead grew to 9-3 heading into the final frame. That's when Braden McCamey closed the door on a strikeout to end it as the Buffaloes celebrated.

"For this group to do it is special. These seniors when they were freshman won just three games. It was bad thing after bad thing. To now go out as back-to-back regionals and finish it off with a district title is awesome," said head coach, Adrian Sauceman. "Never had a team that works hard like this. Just to see it pay off for them, I couldn't be happier for them. I love these kids."

For the three seniors that stuck around through the bad times, Tuesday was a day where they could all look back at the grind it took to get to winning a title.

"All three of us had the same views wanting to change the culture around and wanting to change the program around," said senior Mason McCamey. "We worked hard every day towards that and I feel like we got to that."

And after all the dust settled in Greeneville, the common word used by all the players and staff on Tuesday was hard work.

"Hard work doesn't stop. We'll be right back in the cage tomorrow," said senior Judson Higgins. "Nothing has changed. It's gotten us this far and we will continue to do it."

The Buffaloes now looking back at the journey it took and relying on their vision to make the program good again.

"I had it in the back of my head that we were going to be good our senior year. We kept working and this is what we deserved," said senior, Maddox Garber. "We worked our hind end off. Every single person on this team works hard like every day is the last."

The Buffaloes now await the region tournament beginning over the weekend.