'A surprise for everybody else, not for us' as Columbia captures first district baseball championship in school history

BOISE - A year after a surprise run to last year’s state baseball finals, the Columbia High baseball team pulled off another stunner Thursday night.

The Wildcats snapped top-ranked Middleton’s 19-game winning streak - the longest in the state- with an extra innings 5-1 come-from-behind win in the Class 4A District III championship game at Bishop Kelly High School.

It also earned them the first district title in their 16 years of existence.

Now Columbia (19-7) will have to wait to find out what its seed is and who it will play in next week’s state tournament. But it does know the venue - the same place where it made unexpected magic Thursday.

"It’s awesome to be part of this, especially with kids I’ve grown up playing baseball with since we were 9 years old," junior catcher Isaac Antunes said. "We’re all excited to hold the district plaque, but we understand that’s not the end goal. We want to win state, and we want to prove Columbia baseball is here."

It was another big step forward in the program’s recent resurgence.

Following a state championship in its inaugural season in 2007, the Wildcats failed to produce another winning season until last year. And even that wasn’t all too impressive - at first. They dropped their first five games of the season before qualifying for state through the play-in game with a 13-11 record.

But Columbia went on a Cinderella run to the finals before falling to 4A SIC rival Bishop Kelly, 5-1.

"A surprise for everybody else, not for us," junior pitcher Caden Campa said. "We knew we were good enough to play."

A mentality that carried over into this season with six returners.

The Wildcats didn’t lose more than back-to-back games, and posted winning streaks of three or more five times, including a five-game winning streak during the middle of the season.

But there was still another item to cross off the list - beat Middleton.

The Vikings had edged them twice during the regular season by the exact same score (3-2). And it seemed like they were going to do so again as Middleton clung to a 1-0 in the bottom of the seventh inning - a lead it had only gotten off of a throwing error two innings earlier.

Columbia was down to its final two outs before a throwing error by the Vikings put the tying run at first base. Antunes then stepped into the batter’s box as the only Columbia hitter to have any success in the game with two hits. Neither one of them had really led to much of anything.

This time it was different.

With two strikes against him, Antunes blasted a shot towards the left-centerfield wall that landed safely on the warning track to score Isaiah Capetillo to tie the game at 1-1.

"That is the farthest ball I’ve hit," said Antunes with a laugh.

But Antunes’ heroics were not quite done yet.

In extra innings, Antunes helped open the floodgates for the Wildcats in the eighth inning. With two outs, two strikes and runners at the corners, Antunes gave Columbia its first and only lead of the game on an opposite-field RBI single.

"It goes to show that he’s not a kid that panics in that situation and actually thrives on it," Columbia coach Phil Diplock said. "You preach as a coach your whole career not to get too up, too down, and he’s one of those guys that models it for us."

The rest of the team followed Antunes’ lead. Campa ripped a run-scoring double down the left-field line, JT Penrod drove a run in on another Middleton fielding error and Hunter Christensen hit an RBI single to suddenly give the Wildcats a commanding 5-1 advantage before the inning was finished.

Campa then slammed the door shut on the Vikings. He threw two strikeouts in the bottom of the eighth, including one to end the game and emphatically threw his glove toward the dugout before celebrating the improbable victory in more ways than one with the rest of his team.

"We’re the most confident we’ve ever been, even more than last year," Antunes said. "The only thing that will make this season better is getting that state title."

And after everything they’ve been through, why not them?

Middleton will still be the No. 1 seed at state due to the final MaxPreps rankings being finalized before the end of districts.