With baseball in full swing, thoughts of Gehrig, Aaron, Rose, and Mays to Ryan, Smoltz, and Seaver, fill our head as the we prepare to watch this year’s Major League All-Star game. They were our heroes for generations.
With a local hero in this year’s game, MacKenzie Gore, I would like to spotlight and look back on a team he played for a few years earlier: the 2017 Whiteville Wolfpack.
The 2017 Wolfpack had a loaded team with star power. Led by Senior Gore, who was Player of The Year and won for the State Title Game MVP for a third time, Brook Baldwin, who would be Title MVP the next year, it included Turner Brown, Zac Pait, Jake Hardwood, and Dylan Hamilton just to name a few. They were a dynasty, appearing in five State Championships in six years, winning two 1A titles and two 2A titles (not to mention winning it all again in 2018).
They were a force plowing through the Waccamaw Conference, going 14-0 and finished 25-6 overall. The six losses were to bigger schools in the regular season.
2017 matched Whiteville against the Murphy Bulldogs. In the best of three series, the first game was a dud. Whiteville crushed the Bulldogs 10-0 in a mercy rule game. Game 2 brought all the fireworks.
After two innings, Whiteville had 3-0 early lead thanks to a RBI single by Will Hinson and a two-run triple from Brooks Baldwin, who ended up three for five with five RBI’s. Murphy jumped back up in the forth to lead 4-3. Baldwin knocked in Earl Grubbs in the sixth inning to tie it at 4-4. In the seventh, Murphy was up 8-4 when the whirlwind finish began.
Lincoln Ransom came in on a single to right field. Hinson scored on a sacrifice to make it 8-6 Murphy, with two outs in the bottom of the seventh. Murphy was one out from forcing a third game. Murphy blinked and a hit, walk, and a Brooks Baldwin triple led to an 8-8 tie. Jake Harwood single got Baldwin across the plate. It ended 9-8 Whiteville. Another title. State Champions.
Whiteville Coach Brett Harwood stated that it was a great win and a great feeling at the time. It is. Not many high school athletes get to win a conference championship, much less a state championship.
They were champions. They were a dynasty. They were our heroes, and now they are our heroes. They are on our TV. They are in our back yards.
Catch a White Sox game or the Washington Nationals: you see former members of the Pack. You can even see them on Tuesday in the MLB All-Star game.
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