FAYETTEVILLE -- Mike Moore waited a long time for his first state championship.
A last-ditch effort by the Benton Panthers almost caused Sheridan's coach to wait a little longer.
Freshman Hunter Hicks and sophomore Nick Whitley drove in three runs each and the Yellowjackets held off their 6A-South Conference rival 10-9 in Saturday's Class 6A state title game at Baum Stadium.
Sheridan entered the final inning with a 10-4 lead, but RBI singles from Benton's Drew Harris and Colten Nix were followed by Brinson Winston's three-run home run over the right-field wall that left the Yellowjackets and their fans holding their breath.
But Sheridan senior pitcher Tyler Allen got Colby Johnson to swing at a two-ball, two-strike pitch out of the strike zone to give the program its first state championship.
"If we were going to get beat, we were going to get beat with our best," Moore said of his decision to stick with Allen. "I knew he could get the final out."
"There was no way I was coming out," said Allen, who threw 121 pitches, walked 2, struck out 4 and gave up 11 hits.
Sheridan (24-8) won 12 of its final 13 games. The Yellowjackets' blemish during that streak was a 13-0 loss to Benton in April.
The Yellowjackets entered the state tournament as the No. 2 seed from the 6A-South, and they knocked off Greenwood and Jonesboro by a combined 21-1 in their two previous games.
"Almost every team will have a stretch where they play better during one part of the season than they do the rest of the season," Moore said. "It happened for us the last two weeks. The last few games, it was like we knew the other team would have to play lights out to beat us. You know, that was just a lot of fun."
Benton (24-6) never led.
Harris, a senior right-hander who entered the game with a 6-0 record and an earned run average of 0.75, threw 24 pitches before his team recorded its first out.
Sheridan scored three unearned runs against Harris in the first inning, and Benton Coach Mark Balisterri brought in left-hander Drew Dyer.
Balisterri said Harris' arm starting bothering him two or three batters into the game.
"He's a competitor and he didn't want to give in to it," Balisterri said. "He just couldn't do it."
The Yellowjackets extended a 3-2 lead to 10-4 with seven runs in the fifth and sixth innings.
Sheridan turned six hits, a hit batter and a Benton error into seven runs.
Consecutive singles by senior Tyler Raney, senior Hunter Strong and Hicks brought home Sheridan's first run of the fifth. The Yellowjackets scored two more when Whitley's hard-hit grounder went off the glove of Harris, who had been moved to shortstop.
In the sixth inning, Sheridan came up with an RBI triple by senior Tadd Daggett, a run-scoring single by Strong and a two-run single by Whitley.
"We were a more focused team at the plate at the last of the season," said Hicks, who was named the tournament's MVP and had driven in the Yellowjackets' first two runs with a single in the first inning.
Benton, like Sheridan, finished with 11 hits, four of which came in its final at-bat. Harris. Williams and Jared Baker each had two hits for the Panthers. Chase Nix hit a two-run home run in the Panthers' fifth.
But an early error and the inability to avoid the big inning wound up costing the Panthers.
"We didn't make a couple of plays and they capitalized on it," Balisterri said. "It costs us five or six runs. ... But we wouldn't have been in this position today if our kids had been quitters.
"Hats off to Sheridan. They played a good game and capitalized on the few mistakes we made."
It was Sheridan's first state title in three trips to the championship game.
"It was everything I thought it would be, and a peanut butter sandwich," Moore said, laughing. "It was every bit of what I was hoping for. I've got a piano off my back. I feel like I want to float off right now."
Sports on 05/24/2015