North Broward Prep Baseball Wins State Championship. {NBP Athletics}
By: Matt Rothman
The North Broward Prep baseball team was crowned State Champions for the second time following their incredible season.
“Its extremely special” said head coach Brian Campbell. “Its hard to win one, let alone go back-to-back. Its a special group of players and coaches. The kids never thought they were out of the fight and just kept playing. It was fun to watch.”
In the 3A State Semifinals, the Eagles defeated Cardinal Newman High School 1-0. Yoel Tejada Jr. made the start and pitched 6.2 innings of shutout ball before reaching his pitch count. Jonathan Xuereb came in to record one king-size out to earn the save.
“I knew coming in I was going to give it everything I had,” Tejada said. “It’s a really good team. They have a lot of good players that I knew of, and I knew how to pitch to them. I came ut aggressive and wanted to beat them.”
Offensively, NBP had only four hits, but Riley Luft was responsible for half of them. He drove in the only run on a double-scoring Tejada. Clancy Marsh and Nikolas Koorse also recorded knocks.
In the final, the Eagles faced off against the number six ranked team in the country in Berkeley Prep. NBP jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first. Tejada recorded a sac-fly and added another run on an error. However, Berkley Prep went on to take a 3-2 lead in the fifth. Ryan McPherson, who made the start, was pulled after allowing a home run in the fifth.
Xuereb once again came out of the bullpen and kept the deficit to one before the Eagles came back with three runs in the sixth inning. Luft and A.J. Cutler recorded RBI hits, and Korse recorded a sacrifice fly to extend the lead to 5-3. Xuereb then recorded the final three outs in the Eagles’ win.
NBP finished the season with a record of 23-9 and has won 44 games in the past two seasons, including a pair of District and Regional Championships.
While the Eagles have five players headed to college next year, NBP will still return many key pieces in their quest for a third straight State Championship.
Dylan Merrick and Ryan Scanlon. {NBP Yearbook}
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