Legacy pulls off huge comeback over Aledo to advance to baseball state tournament

Aledo 12, Mansfield Legacy 4

Mansfield Legacy 13, Aledo 9

Miraculous.

Incredible.

Trying to describe the feat that the Mansfield Legacy baseball team pulled off on Saturday at Cleburne High School is, well, indescribable.

Everyone in the stadium knew that the Broncos were done after losing Game 2 to Aledo 12-4 and trailing in Game 3, 9-1, entering the final inning.

But somehow the Broncos found a spark of energy and rallied to score 12 runs in the top of the seventh to stun Aledo 13-9 and earn their first trip to the state baseball tournament since the school opened in 2007.

“It’s been our theme the whole year, to play a full seven,” said Legacy coach Chris McMullen, whose team is the first Mansfield ISD school to reach the state baseball tournament. “Don’t get outside your approach, don’t try to do it all in one swing and if today wasn’t a testament to that then I don’t know what is.”

A lot of the spark for the Legacy rally came from shortstop Parker Ibrahimi who led off the seventh with a solo home run just inside the left field foul pole to cut the lead to 9-2.

From there the inning went single, single, walk, single, pitching change, walk, sacrifice fly (1 out), walk, hit by pitch, pitching change, walk, single, single, single, pitching change, single, single, sacrifice fly (2 out) and pop out to short (3 out).

“We just don’t stop competing,” said Legacy first baseman Kayden Voelkel, whose hard ground single to left drove in two to tie the game at nine. “Just play all seven. That’s been our motto all season. As soon as I stepped on first base it was crazy because I didn’t think it would happen, but it did.

“That home run was an energy changer. After that the energy just kept on going and we knew we had something so we just kept on hitting.”

The Broncos sent 17 batters to the plate in the seventh. Three hitters had two hits each (Voelkel, Andrew Taylor, Connor Crayton).

Six hitters reached base twice (Voelkel, Taylor, Crayton, Ibrahimi, Given King, Blake Julius). Crayton had three RBI in the inning with Ibrahimi (2), Voelkel (2) and Cade Sanberg (2) being others with multiple runs batted in.

Sanberg made the first two outs of the inning, both on sacrifice flies that drove home runs.

Almost lost in the victory and 12-run inning was the pitching of Schlaegel, who came on in relief after the first two batters reached base in the second inning with the score 4-0.

Schlaegel allowed the two inherited runners to score and one more of his own in the second, but after being down 7-0 he allowed just two more runs in the final four innings to earn an unexpected win.

“I was going out there to do as much as I could, but never in the world did I anticipate being the winner,” said Schlaegel, who scattered seven hits, had one walk (intentional) and struck out three. “I was out there warming up in the bullpen when it was nine to nine, after I had hit, and then it was ten to nine and I was hoping for a couple of more. Getting a bigger lead was nice and it was easy to go out and pitch with these guys behind me.”

Aledo (29-12) jumped on Legacy with four runs in the first and three more in the second.

Eight of the first 12 batters for Aledo collected hits. Bearcat third baseman Ryan Jones knocked in two with a hard single to center to make it 4-0 after one. Max Belyeu had the big hit in the three-run second with a sharp liner to left that scored David Jones and Ethan Jaques.

Legacy never really threatened against Aledo starter Carter Shands who scattered five hits in six innings of work.

Shands gave up an RBI single to J.T. Longino in the fourth that cut the Aledo lead to 7-1.

Legacy (32-9) will join Frisco Wakeland (25-13), Friendswood (29-7-1) and Georgetown (32-7) at Dell Diamond in Round Rock with the semifinals scheduled for 4 and 7 p.m. on Thursday.

“They’ve been doing it all year man, they’ve been fightin’,” said McMullen. “They’re just a bunch of fighters so it’s not always the prettiest thing in the world, but there’s just no quit in them. Just an unbelievable job.”

Aledo forced a Game 3 by pulling away late to win Game 2, 12-4.

The Bearcats had a five-run second highlighted by a two-run double by Trace Mazon to take a 5-1 lead.

Ibrahimi, who went 2 for 4 for the Broncos, hit a solo home run in the first.

Legacy had pulled to within 5-4 after scoring three unearned runs in the bottom of the fifth. Voelkel lined an RBI single to center and King followed with a single to left driving in two.

Aledo got a run back in the top of the sixth when Mazon scored on two throwing errors. Then the Bearcats erupted for six runs in the seventh.

Two singles and a sacrifice bunt set up a RBI single by Jones to push the lead to 7-4.

Jaques was hit by a pitch an out later to load the bases for Belyeu who blasted a grand slam to deep right field to put the game out of reach.

This story was originally published June 4, 2022 at 10:39 PM.