Wayne Kearbey and Elvis Williams have both been coaching for more than 20 years and called their teams one of the best teams they've ever had.
Kearbey's squad, the McDonald's Outlaws, finished first in the regular season. Their only loss was to Williams' Black River HVAC, which finished second.
Both were 7-1 entering the Park Department Civic League Tournament championship on Wednesday night at McLane Park.
Thanks to a monster fourth inning capped by Markell Heard's grand slam, Black River took a big lead and held off a late rally to win 12-9.
Heard finished 3 for 4 with three runs scored, two inside-the-park home runs and seven of the team's 12 RBIs.
Black River (8-1) was trailing 3-0 in the third when Heard connected for his first home run, a line drive to the fence in right-center field that also scored Luke Seegraves.
In the following frame, six of the first seven Black River hitters beat out infield singles.
The string of hits put Black River up by two and loaded the bases for Heard, batting third in the lineup.
He rocketed a ball to right field and slid across home plate, capping nine unanswered runs.
"That kid is amazing. He seems to come through at the time that we need him. That was a very big inning. I think we needed that. I think that got us over the hump," Williams said.
Jonathan Vernon added one more in the fourth, putting Black River ahead 10-2, when he tripled to left to score Tyson Gipson.
The Outlaws' (7-2) defense settled down and got five straight outs.
"I just kept trying to remind them, the game ain't over, the fat lady ain't sing and we're going to keep playing. We did, we came back. It just wasn't enough at the end," Kearbey said. "I just wanted to keep the boys hitting. I've seen it happen before."
Keaten Daniels and Jayden Massa scored in the bottom of the fourth to return a little momentum to the Outlaws.
Black River answered with seven straight outs, though, leaving them with one more to get to win the championship.
McDonald's leadoff hitter Drew Cooper, who finished 3 for 3 with two runs, kick-started one last push with hard-hit, two out single up the middle. It was the first of six straight hits, including RBI triples from Hunter Maddox and Jayden Massa. Noah Ruesler's RBI double brought McDonald's to within three runs before the comeback fizzled out.
"They've improved so much it ain't even funny. In the beginning, we didn't melt at all. Now they just come together as a team, all of them. It was one of the better teams I've ever coached and I've been doing it for 25 years," Kearbey said. "They played together and played all and kept everybody up. Nobody got down and if somebody did get down, somebody would get them right back up. They did it as a team. I'm really proud of them."
Williams felt similarly about his squad.
"Best team I've had in a long time. I've been doing this for 20-plus years and it's one of the best teams I've had in a long time. I'm very proud of my boys," he said. "We were down a few times, we didn't hit the ball well sometimes, we missed some balls we shouldn't have missed. But we kept fighting."
Black River finished with 19 hits to the Outlaws' 16.
The first five players in the Black River lineup had three hits apiece, while the first five for McDonald's had at least two each and 12 total.
Both teams left six players on base.
During the postgame huddle, Williams made the mistake of having his back to the crowd and a pair of fans snuck up and dumped a celebratory ice bucket over his head.
"I wasn't expecting that. I've won a couple things but I've never had that done to me before," Williams said. "I'm still cold. It's well worth it. My boys played a good ballgame. They scared me at the end, though."