Senior Weston Brown earned the win and junior Ben Fussell homered in the Coffee Trojans’ 10-0, six-inning home win over the Crisp County Cougars in the 2025 baseball season’s final game.
The win came on the heels of a 3-1 loss to the Pierce County Bears on Thursday. That game was also played at Charles Wilson Field in Douglas. The Trojans managed just three hits in the penultimate game of the year; one of those was a Brax Carson home run in the bottom of the fourth inning.
The Trojans wanted to avenge that loss and end the season on a winning note. It took a little while to get going but they finally broke the game wide open in the sixth and closed it out via the 10-run mercy rule.
Coffee scored a run in the third and fifth innings. The first score of the game came after Fussell went all the way to third on a fly ball to right center that should have been caught. Fussell scored on a groundout by Jimmy Timothy. In the fifth, Fussell hit a solo home run to right on a 3-1 pitch to take a 2-0 lead.
Carter McMillan led off the sixth inning with a walk. Barrett Harrell followed with a single. After a strikeout, Eli Vickers walked to load the bases. That got things back to the top of the order. Fussell was next and he singled to left, scoring McMillan and Harrell. Timothy singled to score Reid Harden, who was pinch running for Vickers. Michael Strickland kept the rally going with a double that brought Fussell and Timothy around to score, giving Coffee a 7-0 lead. Carson and Connor Stewart walked to load the bases, still with just one out. A wild pitch during McMillan’s at-bat scored Strickland and Carson to increase the advantage to 9-0. McMillan came up for the second time in the inning and walked again, putting runners on the corners. Harrell then hit a fly ball to left that was caught for the second out. However, Stewart, who had advanced to third on the same wild pitch that scored Strickland and Carson, tagged and made it safely home to plate the 10th run of the game and invoke the mercy rule.
Fussell was 3-4 with three RBI and three runs scored. Strickland was also 3-4; he drove in two and scored one. Timothy was 2-4 with two RBI and a run. Brown didn’t give up a run. He scattered three hits across four innings and struck out six. He didn’t walk anyone.
The Trojans finish the regular season with an 18-12 overall record and a 10-5 region mark. The playoffs begin Wednesday afternoon. Coffee will travel to Winder to face the Winder-Barrow Bulldoggs in a 3 p.m. doubleheader. Game two, if necessary, will follow on Thursday at 5 p.m.