Fayetteville Lions 2021 State Baseball Champs

A Team All Fayette County Can Be Proud Of

I want you to take a good long look at the photo below this story in the ad on the right.

It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words, and that one is. It’s not your typical action shot, but it shows why Fayetteville is a team anybody should be proud to cheer for, and why the Lions were champions long before the scoreboard at the state title game showed they were. In that photo, Fayetteville first baseman Parker Vitek is helping up the Kennard catcher after that catcher made a key play to get Vitek out in the state title game.

Then Vitek picked up the catcher’s helmet out of the dirt and handed it to him.

As I watched the incident unfold live at the state tournament, it immediately struck me.

What a great moment.

I’m so glad someone else thought so too, enough to seek out that image and run it alongside the words “It’s not just winning that’s important, but HOW you win that matters most.”

Fayetteville played with class, they won with class, and they genuinely had fun doing it.

The way the Lions play baseball, I think, is a direct result of the values instilled in them by their families and coaches.

The team’s only junior, Christian Alaniz, didn’t get to play much this season (five at bats prior to the state tournament) but head coach Clint Jaeger made sure Christian got into the state championship game.

Jaeger told me the key to success in big games (and he’s 6-2 in state tournament games over the years) is just letting kids be kids. That’s refreshing to hear in a world where some coaches yell more than they praise.

Lots of those Fayetteville players had parents or older brothers who came very close to winning state titles, but didn’t.

Fayetteville has had three state championship baseball teams, but there were five other Lions teams that advanced to state but didn’t win, including the 2017 and 2018 teams that were achingly close, losing in the state title game. State titles are something special, and the people of Fayetteville, especially in the aftermath of the recent near misses, know how much they should be cherished.

Fayetteville is unique because so many of the people who grew up there love the town so much that they come back to raise their families there.

And they were all out there at the ballpark in Dell Diamond cheering on the Lions, and then back on the town square in Fayetteville to celebrate in the perfect small town way – watching the players ride around on fire trucks and make speeches from the downtown gazebo.

Congratulations Lions – champions all of Fayette County can be proud of.