Baldwin baseball wins its first-ever Gateway final. Here's how
Long noted as a softball power, Baldwin captured its first-ever baseball championship for the Gateway Conference with a comeback win at Sandalwood.
A Gateway Conference championship trophy on the diamond is coming to Baldwin. And this time, it's not the trophy the town has collected year after year. With gritty performance on the mound from Chase Staley and a go-ahead home run from Turner Farah, third-seeded Baldwin stormed from behind to oust Sandalwood 4-3 on April 2 in the Gateway baseball championship.
For the first time ever, the school that holds five consecutive Gateway championships for softball is also baseball's champion for Duval County public high schools. "We don't quit fighting," Farah said. "We just tried to keep the energy up the whole game.
" Farah raised that energy sky-high at the start of the sixth inning with the score 3-3, when he blasted a pitch from Sandalwood's Parker Shuman over the left field fence as teammates rushed the plate in celebration. The power surge is on for Farah. In his last four games, he's belted four homers.
"That ball went a mile," said Staley, who watched the go-ahead blast from the on-deck circle. BALDWIN WINS ANOTHER NAIL-BITER Call them Duval County's Team Nail-Biter. Baldwin's last eight games have finished with a combined margin of 11 runs, including the April 1 Gateway semifinal against Fletcher that got them here.