Unexpected twist pits Colleyville Heritage, Chisholm Trail against each other in unique showdown

“You kind of go into the series blind which, for a coach, is scary and nerve-wracking. But I think, for the kids, it's just going out and playing ball and things like that. It’s definitely been a whirlwind over the last 24 hours.”

In the midst of the chaos, both coaches had to get their players refocused on new opponents.

“I think it was good to be around the kids to hit (pregame) today, honestly,” McMullen said. “The guys just want to play. I think sometimes as adults, we can over-think it and what bracket and what does that look like, and that's my job, to make sure that we're scouting the correct opponent and to get the logistics taken care of.”

The two teams had actually met earlier this season with Chisholm Trail run-ruling Colleyville Heritage, 11-1. McMullen wanted to make sure that his young team, that replaced eight starters off last season’s regional finalist squad, wasn’t losing sight of that despite them no longer playing Aledo.

“I understand not playing Aledo, it’s easy to maybe take the foot off the gas, human nature, especially being inexperienced,” McMullen said. “But we told them man, in a tournament, these guys run-ruled us.

“We told them when you all come over here today, these guys are also ready to go. They're not playing the defending champs either anymore. They're playing a team that they run-ruled in a tournament.”

Colleyville Heritage took Thursday night’s first game of the series, 4-2.

Jobe Reed’s RBI single kicked things off in the top of the first inning for Colleyville. The game stood 1-0 until Graham Barton and Michael Namy added to it with RBIs in the fifth frame. Chisholm Trail’s Ivan Serrano started a late rally in the bottom of the seventh to score his team’s first run before Karsyn Thomas closed things out for Heritage to claim a 4-2 win.

“At the end of the day though you just got to trust in your kids that they're going to show up and play and we will, when we did today, they just got a couple more hits than we did, and that was the difference in it,” Munguia said.

The series picks back up at Chisholm Trail High School on Friday at 7 p.m. with a Game 3, if needed, set for Saturday at noon at the same location.