CLERMONT, Fla. – Two games.
One hit.
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One state championship.
It still doesn’t seem real for the Middleburg softball team.
The Broncos used a home run by Belle Mincey and another sterling performance from ace Mallory Forrester to beat South Lake 1-0 to win the Class 5A state championship at Legends Way Ballfield late Friday night.
You read that right. Middleburg, a team that had never been past the third round of the state playoffs before this season, turned in two unbelievable games in the most high stakes environment of the season to win in the most stunning way possible. The Broncos did it riding the arm and belief in ace Forrester, a Flagler College signee, down to the very end.
Winning a state championship didn’t seem possible or realistic when the Broncos were sitting at .500 late in the year. But coach Ashley Houston said the team doubled down on its motto of “I Can, I Will,” and believed anything was possible. All they had to do was trust one another until the very end.
They needed that during gut check time against South Lake (19-12), when a two-out rally by the Eagles in the bottom of the seventh loaded the bases and threatened to undo Middleburg. But Forrester relied on her defense and gutted it out to deliver an unbelievable championship, putting the exclamation point on the final athletic event of the season for area teams.
“It just came down to something we’ve been working on all year,” said Broncos coach Ashley Houston. “Just finishing strong, living in the moment and doing it together.”
How unlikely was this championship?
After a 3-0 loss to Keystone Heights on April 28, the Broncos were sitting at 11-11 on the season. They didn’t lose again. In Clermont, Middleburg (20-11) managed just one hit combined in both games here, that coming on Mincey’s shot in the top of the fourth inning.
Houston said that one hit in Clermont was not something Middleburg expected coming in, but it was anything necessary to get the job done. And that one hit was a big one. As soon as Mincey made contact on that pitch to open the fourth, there was no doubt about it. It cleared the centerfield wall by 15 feet and put the Broncos in front to stay.
“I could not have dreamed that we would be here and that we would do what we’ve done,” Mincey said. “But we stuck together, we stuck by each other, we stuck behind one of the best pitchers I’ve ever seen and we did our job. This is great.”
Middleburg was no-hit by Naples in the state semifinals but scratched out a run by nifty baserunning and small ball. They rode Forrester’s brilliance throughout the postseason and especially in Clermont where she whiffed 10 against Naples and another 10 against South Lake. The only trouble Forrester ran into came in the bottom of the seventh in a pressure-cooker situation. South Lake drew a walk, doubled and then had a batter hit by a pitch, all with two outs, to load the bases.
But Forrester induced a pop out to short to end it and the celebration was on.
Forrester’s postseason was sensational. In five playoff games, she threw 39 innings, had a no-hitter (Vanguard), back-to-back games of 19 Ks (Gainesville and Lincoln), iced Naples with a one-hitter in the semis and then kept South Lake to just six hits in the final.
That’s 66 Ks, 13 hits and two earned runs scattered across five win-or-go-home games.
“Honestly, I was just saying to myself, like, ‘I can, I will.’ I knew that my teammates can back me up they’ve done it this whole entire season,” Forrester said. “That last inning was very, very stressful but I knew that I could do it and I believe in myself and I believe in everyone else.”
Middleburg becomes just the 13th area fast-pitch state champion, and third from Clay County, joining Clay High (2001) and Oakleaf (2017).
Area fast-pitch softball state champions
School, Class, Year
Clay, 4A, 2001
Bishop Snyder, 2A, 2006
Bartram Trail, 5A, 2008
Eagle’s View, 1A, 2008
Bartram Trail, 5A, 2009
Eagle’s View, 1A, 2009
Eagle’s View, 1A, 2010
Columbia, 6A, 2013
Baker County, 5A, 2015
Oakleaf, 8A, 2017
Union County, 1A, 2017
Trinity Christian, 4A, 2019
Middleburg, 5A, 2022