Two in two days!!! Catawba Ridge wins baseball and softball state championships.

Catawba Ridge beat North Myrtle Beach 7-3 Friday night in Game 3 of the South Carolina High School Sports League Class 4A Baseball State Championship Series to clinch its first-ever state baseball title.

State champions! Catawba Ridge girls capture the school’s first-ever softball title

The Copperheads went down 3-2 heading into the bottom of the third inning, but the team did what it was unable to in Game 1 -- get timely hits.

Jackson Mullen and Britton Nash each drove in a run to give Catawba Ridge a 4-3 lead after three innings.

Catawba Ridge would strike again in the fifth inning, with Nash, Ben Wilson and Brennan Helms each driving in a run to put the Copperheads up 7-3.

“(Those timely hits were) huge,” head coach Stas Swerdzewski said. “That’s how baseball is won, especially when you have a strong pitching staff like we do. If you can just string timely hits together and put some runs up on the board, then you can turn it over to your pitching and defense.”

The pitching and defense came in huge for the Copperheads, keeping North Myrtle Beach off the board for the final four innings of play.

It was a great feeling for a Catawba Ridge team who dropped the first game of their series at home Monday night. However, Swerdzewski said he knew his team would elevate their play. They’ve been doing it all year.

“We’ve been playing three-game series all season long,” he said. “We know it’s not a one-in-one game, you have to win two. I feel like the backbone of this team has been the pitching staff, and I felt very confident with who we had going on Wednesday (for Game 2) and who we had going today. We knew it was going to be a battle, but we knew that just because we dropped Game 1 doesn’t mean it’s over.”

This state title came a day after the Catawba Ridge softball team clinched their first-ever state title with a 10-7 win over South Florence.

They were out in full force Friday night to cheer on the baseball team.

“I think the only thing that could’ve made our state championship any better was to have baseball follow up on us,” head softball coach Michael Kidd said. “We practice side-by-side with these guys. We’ve seen the work they put in, just like we put in. To see them come out the day after we (win the state championship) and be able to do it, it’s just amazing for our entire school, our program, and couldn’t be more proud of them.”

The Catawba Ridge faithful also showed out in full force to watch the school win state titles on back-to-back days.

What would be a major achievement for any school is compounded by the fact that Catawba Ridge is only four years old.

“When we opened, we looked around the state, ‘who are the great 4A and 5A schools,’” Athletic Director Rick Lewis said. “You talk about your Dormans and programs like that, and we wanted to model ourselves in a championship way. Do it the right way, but to become champions as quickly as we could. And we’ve knocked on that door. Girls soccer has been to the state championship. Softball was there last year and didn’t win. We broke through (Thursday) night, and then boom, here we are tonight. It’s just really special.”

The Catawba Ridge Copperhead baseball team finished the season 29-7 and Region 3-4A champions.