The legacy that this senior class leaves behind…they raised the bar higher than it was when they came in”

Cascade Champions Head Coach Travis Sheffield

MURFREESBORO, Tenn. – After defeating Westview to open the Class AA State Tournament, the Cascade Champions (24-9, 5-3) saw their season come to a close with back-to-back shutout losses against White House Heritage (26-9, 5-1) and Westview (24-11, 8-0) on a rainy Wednesday night at Riverdale.

In the 1-0 game at 4:00 p.m., Cascade’s Caleb Crouch pitched admirably, but unfortunately for his offense, the Champions could not muster up a single run against Westview’s Mr. Baseball Finalist, Tristan Cayce, in a 1-0 defeat. Cayce pitched 7.0 shutout innings, giving up just four hits and three walks with 10 strikeouts on 105 pitches.

“He [Cayce] dealt,” Cascade Head Coach Travis Sheffield said postgame, “He just attacked, and went right at us. All three Mr. Baseball finalists were out here today, and all three of them showed why they were finalists. He did nothing that we didn’t expect. Losing a 1-0 game, I don’t have anyone to blame but myself. Every time we don’t score a run, I go home and I don’t sleep for about three days.”

Crouch pitched 6.0 innings, and he pitched the first five innings scoreless before the Patriots managed to get an RBI-base hit in the bottom of the sixth to take a 1-0 lead. Crouch gave up just one earned run on six hits and two walks while striking out four batters on 89 pitches.

At the plate for Cascade in the first game, Jordan Childress led off going 2-for-4 with a double, Wickey Parker went 1-for-2 with a double, and Daymien Maldonado finished 1-for-3. 

With the loss, Cascade was forced to hang around at Riverdale and take on Westview in a rematch for an elimination game. The Champions defeated the Chargers, 5-2, to open the Tournament, but this time, Westview’s Graham Simpson shoved on the mound in what turned into a 9-0 Westview win. Simpson got the start and pitched 7.0 shutout innings, giving up just four hits and one walk with nine strikeouts on 100 pitches despite his start being interrupted by more than an hour-long weather delay.

“1-0 through five, we had 12 straight scoreless innings at that time,” Sheffield said about his team’s offense, “We just couldn’t get a hit with runners in scoring position. There were a number of times that we just couldn’t make it happen. That’s just baseball sometimes. Today was not our day.”

Wickey Parker got the start for Cascade, and Parker pitched extremely well through four innings before the rain began to come down heavily. However, in the bottom of the fifth, Sheffield was forced to pull him in a downpour due to Parker’s inability to grip the baseball to throw his off-speed. During the pitching change, TSSAA officials finally realized that the heavy rain was a safety issue and paused the game, despite having witnessed Daymien Maldonado be unable to hold onto his bat handle in the top-half of the inning. On a swinging strike, Maldonado’s bat went flying into the netting behind him, narrowly missing teammate Jordan Childress in the on-deck circle. The game should have been paused then due to obvious safety concerns, but nonetheless TSSAA attempted to continue powering through until about 20 minutes later. 

However, the damage had already been done. Preceding the irresponsibly late call to pause the game, Westview managed to plate four runs all thanks to Cascade mishaps in the rain. First, Parker was practically unable to throw his breaking ball, so he was limited to just fastballs. First, Wes Hatler worked a leadoff walk, and then Easton Wyatt laid down a sacrifice-bunt in an attempt to move the runner to second. Not only did Hatler advance to second, but Thomas Demartelaere’s throw to first sailed 10 feet wide of the bag due to his inability to grip the baseball in the downpour, allowing Hatler to advance to third with nobody out. Then, Christopher Damron singled and drove in a run to short, followed by Colin Haskins driving home Wyatt on another RBI-single to take a 3-0 lead. After Simpson popped out to shortstop, Poston Essary singled to right to drive home two more runs and take a 5-0 lead before both teams were finally taken off the field.

Parker’s line would finish as 4.1 innings pitched with six earned runs on four hits and four walks while striking out eight batters on 91 pitches.

After the delay, Cascade gave up one more run on a fielder’s choice before the Chargers plated three more in the bottom of the sixth to reach the final margin of victory. 

At the plate for the Champions, Wickey Parker went 1-for-3, Jayden Hathcock was 1-for-3, and Xykaiah Dixon finished 2-for-3.

Afterwards, Travis Sheffield thanked the four departing seniors – Elijah Wesenberg, Thomas Demartelaere, Jordan Childress, and Mr. Baseball Finalist Jayden Hathcock – for raising the standard around Cascade Baseball back to what it once was roughly a decade ago.

“The legacy that this senior class leaves behind…they raised the bar higher than it was when they came in,” he said, “Not to fast-forward too fast, the guys coming back, the bar has been raised moving forward.”

Sheffield took the job the year that this year’s graduating class were freshmen, and he led the Champions to a surprise district title behind the arm of then-freshman Jayden Hathcock en route to a sub-state appearance. This season, Cascade returned to the state tournament for the first time since 2015 and for just the fifth time in program history after winning both District 9-AA, Region 5-AA, and sweeping a state sectional series against the back-to-back State Runners-Up in Huntingdon.

“When we got reclassified this year, I told myself, man, TSSAA/TBCA threw us into a gauntlet of a district,” Sheffield admitted, “But after having conversations with the boys and looking at everything, they bought into the concept of we didn’t change districts, instead those other powerhouse schools came into our district. Once those boys bought into that, there was no turning back.”

Cascade finishes a successful 2026 season at 24-9 overall.