Maybe on a day like today, it was meant to be.

Down to their final three outs in the FHSAA Rural District 7 championship game on Maundy Thursday, also known as Holy Thursday, the St. Francis Catholic Academy baseball team found a way.

Trailing 2-1 in the bottom of the seventh inning, the Wolves scored two runs and rallied for a 3-2 victory against host Oak Hall School to win their first district title in program history.

Sophomore Cyrus Fariborzian had a walk-off RBI single in the bottom of the seventh inning to win it for the Wolves (19-6), who were the home team at Roger Maris Field.

“It feels incredible,” said second-year head coach Ryan Brown. “I’ve gone over it a bunch of times of what I was going to say when this moment happened, and obviously that all goes out the window when you’re this excited on a walk-off like that. I don’t know what it is. I just had a feeling last night that Cyrus was going to win it for us, I really did.”

Oak Hall senior pitcher Gavin Jones was in control heading into the final inning.

Through six innings, he had only given up one run on two hits.

“It’s a tough loss,” said Oak Hall coach Kevin Maris, whose team left nine runners on base. “We had our opportunities to go ahead and take the game, and we didn’t do what we needed to at the plate. Pitching wise, I thought Gavin came out and threw a solid game from start to finish…you’ve got to be able to move runners and if you’ve got runners on and you can’t move them, it’s tough to win ball games doing that.”

Jones (2-for-4, RBI), who drove in the first run of the game on a single to left field in the top of the first inning, walked St. Francis sophomore Nate Muir to lead off the seventh inning and Muir went to third on a double down the left field line by freshman Sawyer Williams, who scored the game-winning run.

“It’s a great feeling,” Williams said on winning the school’s first district title. “It’s big for our school. It just shows the hard work and dedication that our team has.”

Lincoln Jones came in to pitch for Gavin Jones (6 innings pitched, 3 earned runs, 3 hits, 3 walks, 4 strikeouts, 88 pitches) and threw a wild pitch, scoring Muir to tie the game at 2-2.

Powers was hit by a pitch, sending up Fariborzian to deliver perhaps the biggest hit in St. Francis baseball history.

“I’ve coached that kid for seven years now, going back to middle school, maybe eight years, and seen him grow up as a player,” Brown said. “That was just special.”

Williams threw five innings and allowed just one earned run.

“He’s one of the best all-around players in the area,” Brown said. “He can do a lot of good things, and above all, he’s just a great competitor. When I had the chance to pick who I wanted to start this game for us, I knew I wanted to go with Sawyer and let his first cousin, Sander (Williams), take it the rest of the way after that, and it played out well for us. We were able to get just enough runs to make it work out. Man, I’m a happy camper right now.”

Sawyer’s cousin, Sander, worked out of a couple of jams to get the win on the mound.

In the top of the sixth, eighth grader Lincoln Jones (2-for-2) led off with a single to left field off Sander Williams (2 IP, 0 R, 2 H, 0 BB, 5 K).

Jones stole second and third but was left stranded after Sander Williams struck out the next three batters.

Then, in the top of the seventh inning, Oak Hall freshman Brayden Farmer singled and went to second on an error on a fielded bunt by Sander, who bobbled the ball and was unable to make a play on the sacrifice attempt.

Once again, Sander battled back and struck out two of the next three batters to end the threat.

“That’s just what he is,” Brown said. “He’s the sandman. Out of all the pitchers on our team, he’s the one I feel the most comfortable with at the back end of a game when the game is on the line, and he showed you why. He can hold runners well, and he can still hit his spots when doing so, and he was able to get out of a couple of jams.”

The FHSAA, which has a new best-of-3 format for each of the regional rounds, will have a bracket release show at noon on Friday on their YouTube channel.

St. Francis Catholic clinched a berth in the Class 1A regional quarterfinals, but a home game is to be determined.

“We’ll see how it works out,” Brown said. “Sometimes when they have two district champions matched up against each other, the higher seed will go, but we’re just excited to see where we go. We know we’ve got a good ball team, and we’ve kind of already started scouting some of the teams that we might play so that’s what I’ll be doing this weekend. But yeah, we’re excited about it.”

Meanwhile, the Eagles entered the day as the No. 7 seed in Class 1A-Region 2 and will hold out hope, or a prayer, for an at-large playoff berth.

“We’ve come a long way as a young ballclub, and I thought they competed well,” Maris said. “We just didn’t take care of our own business, and that’s baseball at the end of the day…I think there is an outside shot (at-large playoff berth)…we’re playing solid ball, lose by one run and the way we did, and we had our opportunities, one hit can change the whole game.”

Buchholz 12, Tocoi Creek (St. Augustine) 2 (6) – The host Bobcats (26-1) rode a fast start to an easy 12-2 mercy-rule win against the visiting Toros (17-8) in the Class 6A-District 2 championship game at Bobcat Park.

Buchholz scored five runs in the bottom of the first inning for a 5-0 lead, and they scored three runs in the bottom of the sixth inning to win it in six innings.

“It’s our third (district title) in a row, which is great, a threepeat, but as a team this was our first goal,” said Buchholz coach Ron Brooks. “We got that goal. Now we’ve got to move on to bigger things. The FHSAA playoffs are not for the faint of heart. We know we’ve got a tough road ahead.”

Senior Stuart Ding led the Bobcats (26-1) with three RBI, while sophomore Hudson Sapp drove in a pair.

Buchholz opened the season with a school record 21 straight wins before suffering its only loss at Lincoln (Tallahassee) on Saturday, April 5. They’ve won five in a row since the loss.

“Everybody’s 0-0,” Brooks said. “As much fun as we’ve had during the regular season and as much fun the district tournament has been, it’s all back to work, back to everybody being 0-0 and you’ve got to win best two out of three every week, and that’s what we’re focused on.”

Matthew Kilgore contributed to this Buchholz report

Thursday, April 17

FHSAA Baseball District Tournament championship scores

(Teams in the Mainstreet coverage area in bold)

Class Rural-District 6 at Union County (Lake Butler)

1 Lafayette (Mayo) 4, 3 Branford 1

Class Rural-District 7 at Trenton

1 Trenton 4, 3 Chiefland 3

Class 1A-District 5 at Oak Hall

1 St. Francis Catholic Academy 3, 2 Oak Hall 2

Class 2A-District 4 at Keystone Heights

1 Keystone Heights 12, 3 Trinity Catholic (Ocala) 5

Class 3A-District 3 at Suwannee (Live Oak)

1 Suwannee (Live Oak) 10, 3 Paxon (Jacksonville) 0 (5)

Class 3A-District 5 at Santa Fe (Alachua)

2 Palatka 9, 1 Santa Fe (Alachua) 4 (8)

Class 5A-District 3 at Columbia (Lake City)

1 Columbia (Lake City) 8, 2 Ridgeview (Orange Park) 2

Class 6A-District 2 at Buchholz

1 Buchholz 12, 2 Tocoi Creek (St. Augustine) 2 (6)