Jefferson County baseball's turnaround complete with state appearance
The first state tournament appearance for Jefferson County High School’s baseball team seemed like a distant thought in 2014, but coach Zachary Reese saw the potential.
Only three years after posting a 10-22 mark in that 2014 season — the worst in program history — the Patriots will step onto Oakland High School’s diamond on Tuesday at 5 p.m. ET in the opening round of the Class AAA state tournament against Beech, fulfilling what Reese believed all along.
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“These kids, each year they’ve improved,” Reese said. “When I became head coach (before the 2016 season), they really did buy in to the vision I had. I told them they had the opportunity to do something special if they bought in to what we were doing and kept improving. They did that and that is why we’re here.”
Reese had experienced that low of the program, but he also remembered how close the program had come just years before. He was an assistant when the Patriots made it to sectionals in 2012, so when he was promoted in July 2015 after then-head coach Gaines Cox resigned due to health and personal reasons, he wanted to take that next step.
He did so along with the current senior class that began its career as a bottom feeder and will end it as one of the eight best teams in the state.
To get to Murfreesboro, though, Jefferson County had to get past state power Farragut, which had been to the state tournament each of the past nine seasons. The Patriots put an end to that streak with a 6-2 extra-inning victory over the Admirals in the Class AAA sectionals Friday.
“It’s special what they did for our school, but what makes it even more special is who we had to beat and where we had to beat them,” Reese said. “Farragut is the gold standard. When you think of Tennessee high school baseball, that’s the team you think of.
“As a team we talked on Thursday, and we said to be the best, we have to beat the best. These guys weren’t scared. … If we were ever going to make it (to state), we were going to have to go through them and we were able to.”
The Patriots, however, are not getting caught up in what they have accomplished just yet. They know there is still more that they could potentially celebrate.
“This whole school and the community, they’ve been waiting on something like this from the baseball program,” Reese said. “It really hasn’t sunk in yet, but we worked out this afternoon (Sunday) and these guys are focused on what it ahead of them. They’re happy that we’re here and that we finally made it, but they know we have a chance to go out there and make some noise.”