Crawford County Prepares for First Ever Final Four Appearance in Program History
The Eagles (26-8) will take their young ten player squad to Prince Avenue Christian for a GHSA A D-I Final Four Matchup
ROBERTA, Georgia – (41NBC/WMGT) – The Crawford County Eagles baseball team has been preparing for their first ever GHSA Class A D-I Final Four matchup ever in program history.
After graduating eight seniors and finishing last season with the most regular season wins in school history, Crawford County’s expectations for this season were to get the young team’s feet wet, considering there is only one senior on the team. However, the 26-8 Eagles have far exceeded expectations reaching the final four game for the first time, with only ten players on the roster.
Eagles Head Coach Trevor Moncrief is in his first season as head coach. Coach Moncrief played two seasons with the Eagles, and was a Assistant Coach under former Head Coach turned Athletic Director, Craig Puckett, before taking the head job.
“It means a lot, especially as a coaching staff, being able to inherit this program from Coach Puckett” said Moncrief. “Just a long history of people supporting this community…{the players} are super invested, not only in the team mantra, but each other. They hang out….just a very tight knit group, so this years has been very special and I think that’s one of the reasons we are playing so deep into the season.”
Not to mention, they are the only public school left in the GHSA Class A D-I Final Four. Something Coach Moncrief takes pride in. “It’s hard to win whenever you compete against a bunch of private schools, but when you have homegrown kids, that have grew up here in this community…they don’t know much else about baseball outside of playing here in Roberta” said Moncrief.
With the Eagles being short staffed and young to go along with it, the lone Senior Griffin Parker spoke about his leadership on the team. “I feel like I have to step up and be there for the younger guys…I feel like I should be there to be the backbone of this team” said Parker.
Junior Isaac Meadows IV has always been a big supporter of this program, and this season, he believes it has gotten even better. “This year it felt like we had a tighter group together and there was a little bit more leadership. Off the ball field we can all kind of bond together and I feel like that helps on the ball field” said Meadows.
Makale Harris is another Junior that is confident in his team’s ability to win. “To be honest, we had less people, but that proves and showed that we have that dog in us and we still have that confidence to make it to the final four. A lot of people doubted us, but we showed them and proved them wrong” said Harris.
After they won their Elite Eight game 4-3 in dramatic fashion, the Eagles now turn their attention to their next opponent, Prince Avenue Christian, with a first pitch scheduled for 4pm Friday, May 10. Eagles agree it’s going to need to be a team win to advance to the GHSA Class A D-I State Championship.
