Southside Christian wins third straight Class A baseball state title

Simpsonville – The 2024 senior class for the Southside Christian School baseball team has a pretty impressive resume to carry with it. The 8-man class won 100 games over the four years, played for the Class A state tile in each of those seasons and leaves as the 3-time defending state champions.

The Sabres pulled off the 3-peat on Tuesday with a 13-3, 5-inning win over Latta at the Sabre Park to sweep the best-of-3 championship series.

Southside Christian head coach Scott Freeman, who just completed his fourth season in charge of the program, said the success has come about because of a lot of hard work.

“I’m so excited for our seniors,” Freeman said of the 8-man class of Nelson Vaughn, Matthew Mills, Cole Matthews, Kolby Sentelle, George Massingill, Guy Hawkins, Brayden Shelley and Cole Tarango.   We've got five seniors who played as freshmen (Vaughn, Mills, Sentelle, Massingill and Tarango). playing for it four times in a row. To get there as freshmen.is great, and the consistency they showed, working hard, getting better every year and winning it three in a row. I’m so happy for those kids “

The Sabres ended the season with a 27-7 record, winning their final 13 games in the process. Freeman said he was not surprised by his squad’s success.

“Last year honestly was a little bit of a surprise because of what we lost from the previous year,” Freeman said. “We overperformed at the end in the playoffs. We had almost everybody back. So we thought we could be there at the end of the season. There were things we had to deal with, things we had to work on getting better at, but we stepped up and really played like we were expecting to.”

SCS traveled to Dillon County on Monday and beat Latta, which finished the year with a 23-14 record, 8-6. Southside Christian went to the bottom of the seventh with an 8-0 lead before the Vikings put together a crazy 6-run rally.

Ace pitcher Carson Bolemon had thrown six no-hit innings with 14 strikeouts and just one walk. Bolemon was at 86 pitches and Freeman decided to pull him so he would be available if a third game was needed.

“Nobody mentioned (the no-hitter), we stuck to the rules of baseball.” Freeman said. “We wanted him available for Game 3. I'd do the same thing again.

“We brought in Matthew Mills, who’s been good for us all year. They just had some crazy hits right over guys’ gloves. We were able to get out of it though.”

Vaughn came on in relief and got the save even though Latta did get the tying run to the plate.

Sentelle was 2-for-2 with a triple, two runs batted in and a run scored, Vaughan was 2-for-3 with a run scored and two RBI, Jacob Wiggs drove in two runs, and Bolemon had two hits. 

Nick Lane and Eli Jones both had 2-run doubles for Latta in the seventh. Fisher Richardson, Mason Weatherford and Preston Brown had the other Latta hits.

Any hopes Latta had of trying to carry that final at-bat magic with it on the road on Tuesday was quickly thwarted by Southside Christian. The Sabres scored six runs over the first two innings and never looked back.

“We recognized that gave them a little it of life,” Freeman said. “We had a long bus ride home, but we were excited to be back home on Tuesday. We turned around and worked on getting the momentum right back. We played more like we did the first six innings. They (Latta) showed they'd never quit. We knew that regardless of the score. We scored four runs in the fifth to end it.”

Bolemon, a junior, hit a 2-run home run in the fifth to make it 11-3. Sentelle, who will play collegiately at University of South Carolina Sumter, had a 2-run double to end the game.

Bolemon’s younger brother, sophomore catcher Tyler Bolemon, also homered.

Massingill, who will be going to Anderson University along with Vaughn, pitched all five innings to get the win. He allowed five hits while striking out three and walking none.

Jones and Colby Smith each drove in runs for Latta, Smith’s RBI coming on a solo homer. Lane, Brown and Dawson Covington also had hits for the Vikings.