Jimmie Lewis: ‘It’s gonna be a special night in Harlem’ after Bulldogs repeat as champs

The Harlem Bulldogs captured their second straight GHSA Class AAA state championship Friday night in a two-game sweep of Calvary Day in Rome, Georgia. The state crown was the program’s ninth. Seven of those have come under coach Jimmie Lewis. Along with our story coverage, photographer Jonathan Landers captured some of Friday night’s action.

By: Jeff Gable

One of the biggest accomplishments in high school sports is to win a state championship. 

One of the toughest challenges is to repeat. 

The No. 1-ranked Harlem baseball team didn’t seem phased in the least bit by that challenge on Friday, as the Bulldogs cruised past the No. 3 Calvary Day School Cavaliers 13-5 and 7-0 on a cool, drizzly night at AdventHealth Stadium in Rome in the GHSA Class AAA championship series.

The sweep gives Harlem an impressive 20-0 postseason record over the past two seasons, and the Bulldogs finished this year with an eye-popping 40-1 record.

The state title was the ninth baseball championship in school history and the seventh in the long, illustrious head-coaching career of Jimmie Lewis, but if winning titles gets dull or boring, you’d never know it from seeing a beaming Lewis at the podium during the post-game press conference.

“These seniors up here with me are something special. Now, they are all crazy as a loon, but they never give up and they never quit,” said a smiling Lewis as his players laughed. “This team is one of the best groups I’ve ever been around, and for them to go 75-2 over the last two years and go through the playoffs unbeaten in the last two seasons… wow, that is just mighty special. I just love moments like this — I mean, I feel 25 years old right now. It’s fun being around kids like this, and it keeps you young.”

Calvary Day (27-8) entered the day averaging over eight runs per game this season, but the Cavaliers could never find any rhythm against Harlem’s pitching staff.

“What you notice about Harlem is that they just have super-competitive kids,” said Calvary Day head coach Phillip Lee. “They put so much pressure on you because they compete on every pitch. They really executed at a high level tonight. It’s just a disappointing finish because you know how much work our kids put in.”

The Bulldogs got a workhorse effort from senior pitcher Amerson Guy in the first game of Friday’s doubleheader, as he lived up to his team’s moniker. The left-hander battled his way through six innings, scattering 11 hits and allowing five runs while striking out four and walking two.

He took on a heavy workload, firing 101 pitches before he was lifted with two on and nobody out in the top of the seventh. That’s when Dominic Titus came on in relief, getting a strikeout and a double-play to end the threat and the game. 

“During the game, my adrenaline was pumping pretty good,” Guy said. “But there wasn’t really any nerves because I knew I had my teammates behind me, backing me up.”

Will Holder went 3-for-3 at the plate with two RBI and three runs scored, while Jake Fulmer walked, hit a RBI single, and scored two runs. The Bulldogs were aggressive on the base paths all night, stealing 11 bags in the game.

After scoring a run in the bottom of the first, Harlem exploded for a six-run second inning to build a huge lead. The Bulldogs plated two more runs in the third, three in the fifth and one more in the sixth.

Calvary Day scored three runs in the fourth inning on four hits, a walk and an error, but the Cavaliers left the bases loaded. The other two runs came in the sixth inning. 

In the nightcap, Harlem scored three times in the second inning and two more times in the third to take control. Calvary Day aided in the cause with an uncharacteristic five-error game in the field.

Senior Caiden Coile was in command all night on the mound for Harlem. The right-hander tossed a complete-game shutout, only scattering seven singles, while striking out seven, including the final out of the night. 

Coile also had a big game at the plate, going 3-for-4 with an RBI. Walker Spivey went 2-for-3 with two RBI and a pair of runs scored.

Trailing 6-0 in the sixth inning, Calvary Day’s best scoring chance came after a single and an error put a pair of runners on base with two outs. However, a curling foul pop up by Max Arnold was chased down by Harlem junior first-baseman Will Holder, who crashed over the Calvary Day dugout railing to make a spectacular catch to end the Cavaliers’ threat. 

Calvary Day senior Will Hampton did everything he could to extend his team’s season, collecting two hits and a stolen base offensively and pitching six gutsy innings on the mound, giving up nine hits and seven runs with seven strikeouts, but it wasn’t enough to overcome Harlem and force a Game 3.

“It just hurts right now because we’ve been working toward this ever since August,” Hampton said quietly at the post-game media session. “It’s tough to come this far and come up short and to look to my right and left and realize that I won’t get to play on the field with these guys again. But we’ll always have the lifetime memories that you make while playing high school sports.”

While the memories for the Calvary Day players may be difficult ones for a while, the joyful memories on the Harlem side will likely be indelible.

“I thought our team handled adversity well all year long, and we knew this season that we’d have to do a good job pitching and we did that all the way down the stretch here in the playoffs,” Lewis said. “Give all the credit to these guys — they have set the bar now pretty high for our program. And I’ll tell you what else — we have the best fans in the world. We had a mob here tonight, and if we had played this game in California, they would have followed us there. 

“It’s gonna be a special night in Harlem.”