Long time coming: Rebels wait out rain, outlast Red Devils to win state
JACKSONVILLE – It’s been a long 23 years for the Vestavia Hills High School baseball program, so one more day didn’t seem so bad.
A few minutes past midnight on Friday, May 19, the Rebels finished off a 4-1 win over Central-Phenix City to win the Class 7A championship series. The victory in the third game of the best-of-three series gave Vestavia its first state title since 2000.
“It’s been a long time, it’s been too long,” Vestavia Hills head coach Jamie Harris said.
The Rebels won the first game of the series Wednesday evening, 5-4, as William Tonsmeire delivered the walk-off hit after Central tied things in the top of the seventh.
Game two of the series was set for 4 p.m. Thursday at Jacksonville State University’s Jim Case Stadium, but severe weather in the area delayed the start for three hours. The Red Devils outlasted Vestavia 5-4 in that game, setting up the third game of the series.
First pitch of that third game was fired just after 10 p.m., and the final out was made at 12:21 a.m.
“We were going to get it done no matter how long it took, no matter how many outs we had to play. We were going to get the job done. They handled it like champs,” Harris said.
Central forced the decisive third game of the series by controlling the second game for six innings. The Red Devils held a 4-0 lead, but an eventful seventh inning saw Vestavia Hills score four runs to tie the game.
Tonsmeire nearly gave the Rebels the lead, as his base hit scored a run, but a second runner was thrown out at the plate to maintain the 4-4 score.
Central’s Hunter Wippert run-scoring hit in the bottom of the seventh lifted the Red Devils to the win.
CJ Johnston, John Paul Head and Hudson Walburn all had runs batted in in the seventh inning. Jable Ramey threw six innings, allowing 4 runs (2 earned) on 5 hits.
But the Rebels were unfazed heading into the final game.
“We hadn’t lost two games [in a row] all year,” Harris said. “That’s all we said. We haven’t lost two games and we’re not starting today.”
They didn’t. After Central scored on a bases-loaded walk in the top of the second, Vestavia responded with a pair of runs in the bottom half. Grant Downey tied the game with a base hit and an error brought home another run to give the Rebels a 2-1 lead.
Downey drove in another run in the fourth and Jackson Harris gave his team an insurance run with an RBI knock in the sixth to make it 4-1.
Ryan Vermillion did the rest, firing a complete game, allowing only a single hit and striking out six on his future home field. Vermillion and his battery mate, catcher Walburn, are signed to play at Jacksonville State.
“He was throwing until his arm fell off,” Harris said. “To throw a one-hitter in the state championship game, that’s legendary.”
Vermillion was spectacular last week in the semifinals, closing out the second game and firing a complete game in the third game to help lift Vestavia past No. 1 Thompson.
“We’ve been talking about it since October,” said Vermillion, who took home finals MVP honors. “We knew this team was special and we knew we could do it.
“I said last week was the most fun I’d had, but this tops it.”
In the first game of the series, Aiden Black pitched six strong innings before Central rallied to tie the game in the seventh. Harris, Head and Walburn drove in runs in the game in addition to Tonsmeire’s big hit.
In the lead-up to the season, Harris had his team watch the AHSAA Radio Network’s film on Sammy Dunn, the late, legendary Vestavia Hills coach who led the Rebels to their previous nine state championships, won over a 10-year stretch from 1991-2000.
It was produced in early 2021, but a sentence on the screen toward the end reads, “They haven’t won one since,” referring to Vestavia’s state championship drought. That no longer applies.
"That’s been our rallying cry all year,” Harris said. “I think Coach Dunn is looking down on us smiling.”