Five years in a row.
That's how many straight Super 10 Baseball Championships have been won by the Thomson Middle School Bulldogs.
Their latest title came last Saturday, as they defeated the Washington-Wilkes Middle Tigers in a 3-2 game that went three extra innings. The game was played at Sweetwater Park near Thomson.
At the end of the regulation six-inning game, both teams remained scoreless. It stayed that way until the bottom of the eighth when the Bulldogs of Coach Brett Chalker struck for two runs to tie the Tigers 2-2 and send the game into another extra inning.
After holding the Tigers scoreless in the ninth inning, Thomson came back to score what turned out to be the winning run in the bottom of that frame.
Shortstop Josh Jones, who was called upon to pitch in relief in the eighth, actually scored the winning run when teammate Jared Holliman hit a pop up single, just out of reach of Washington-Wilkes' third baseman Will Suther.
In earlier innings, the game centered around a pitching duel between Thomson's Andy Grimaud and Washington-Wilkes' Trey McAvoy.
When the Bulldogs seemed dejected after the Tigers scored two runs in the eighth, it was second baseman John Holloway igniting his team to victory with chants from the dugout. Holloway got his teammates behind him and as a result, the Bulldogs went on to mount one of their most remarkable championship wins ever.
