Heritage's turnaround ends with a Virginia Class 4 baseball championship
Heritage baseball coach Nolan Potts will admit it: in early May, his team just wasn't very good. Its record was 6-11, a far cry from the lofty expectations set at the season's outset. Time was running out.
So the Pride gathered for a meeting, where a parent offered the players a motto. He told them to 'burn the ships' — meaning they should leave their prior struggles in the past. They knew they had the talent to turn things around. They just needed to prove it.
'We just found the positives throughout the negativity and focused on that to build for future games,' junior Mark Van Tuyle said.
Suddenly, a switch flipped. The wins started coming and the Pride kept knocking down hurdles. They won the program's first region championship and eventually earned a shot at the ultimate prize.
On Saturday in Charlottesville, Heritage found its final form in a 12-2 victory over Woodgrove – a 12th straight win that earned it the Virginia Class 4 championship. When the game ended in the fifth inning by way of mercy rule, it secured the first state title for a Heritage boys' program in any sport.
'A lot of people, based on our overall record, didn't think we could do this,' Potts said. 'But these guys believed the entire time that if we hit a hot streak and got healthy, this wasn't out of the question. Just to cap it off the way we did yesterday, it was a perfect. Storybook ending to the season.'
Recovering from early-season injuries helped the Pride (18-11) power back into contention. Brothers Aaron and Mark Van Tuyle missed the start of the season, but when they returned, Heritage had a dynamic one-two punch on the mound. Once the offense picked up, everything was in place.
'It all just clicked. Everyone started thinking that we could make a run, and the coaches never gave up on us,' said Cooper Miskelly, a junior who hit .647 in the final 12 games of the season.
The Pride treated Saturday's contest like any other game, coming up against a Woodgrove (22-5) team it had split two prior games with this season. They played loose, presenting solid defense behind a one-hit pitching performance from Mark Van Tuyle one day removed from his brother's complete-game shutout in the semifinals. A three-run first inning set the tone before a six-run second put Heritage in complete control.
'We knew we had to be aggressive and treat every play as if it were a 0-0 game,' said Aaron Van Tuyle, a Richmond signee who played left field. 'So every inning we continued to tack on runs, and it worked out for us.'
Even as the result creeped toward definite, Potts remained nervous. But this evolved version of his team looked unbothered by the stage, even with it being the program's first time even qualifying for the state tournament. The past wasn't a concern. The players kept their focus forward and finished the job.
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