Our Bob Jones baseball team has made the semifinals of the AHSAA 7A Varsity Baseball State Championship multiple times in recent years, and they even made the finals in 2019 – where the Patriots unfortunately fell to the McGill-Toolen Yellow Jackets. However, this year is much different. It’s different due to our opponent. Bob Jones and James Clemens are about to square off in possibly the biggest high school baseball event in Madison’s history. The two schools will soon play each other in the semifinals of the playoffs for the first time. Games one and two of the series will be played on Wednesday, beginning at 5:00 and 7:30 PM; if necessary, a third game will be played on Thursday, starting at 5:30 PM.
Possibly as an extension of the rivalry between the two schools, the teams employ vastly different play styles to win ball games. Bob Jones prefers a power-first approach, focusing on home runs. By contrast, James Clemens is partial to “small ball,” which stresses the importance of stealing bases and good defense.
Our school has added 1100 seats to the baseball stadium for this game. Safe to say that the stakes are high. Fortunately, Bob Jones baseball is more than qualified for this moment.
The accomplishments of our baseball team are numerous. The team sports an overall record of 40-7 and is ranked 13th nationally in the Perfect Game rankings. They beat IMG Academy (IMG was ranked #1 in the country at the time) and won the Area Tournament against the very same school we will play on Wednesday. In addition, the Patriots just vanquished the Thompson Warriors, a Birmingham-area school with a long history of athletic successes, especially in football (Taulia Tagovailoa played QB there, among others).
Along with the opportunity to humiliate our rivals again, Bob Jones is incredibly close to history. If we win the series against James Clemens, the 2024 Bob Jones baseball team will tie the school record for wins in a season. If they even take one game in the final, in which case Bob Jones will be playing either Central-Phenix City or Auburn, they will become the most successful baseball team in school history.
Tickets are available on gofan.co/event/1518358
Make use of those brand-new seats! Go Patriots!
Photo credited to @bjhsbaseball
