Despite a  loss to Emerson to end the season, the Redhawks baseball team advanced to the playoffs, where they meet up with District 12-5A champion Wakeland, in a best-of-three series starting at 7:30 p.m. at Independence and Panther Creek Thursday through Saturday.

According to head coach Scott McGarrh, the team has grown immensely since the beginning of the season, demonstrating resilience and perseverance like no other team McGarrh has coached in his 30 years of experience.

“Where we were, the injuries that took place, the struggles that we went through, continuing the battling, and then where we got, it’s probably as rewarding of a season as I’ve ever had in 30 years,” McGarrh said. “You know, we could’ve complained that we lost this kid, we lost that kid, because we lost some key members, but we didn’t. We just kept fighting. I mean, we had a kid that broke his finger and continued to play. So it just shows you a little bit about the resiliency of this group and how much fun they are. So at the end of the day, we won the games we needed to win, so everybody’s got a chance now.”

Freshman Joshua Fei believes that the challenges in the playoffs will be tougher than those the team has faced in previous games.

“Wakeland is probably the best team we’ve played so far since they’re a lot better than all the other schools we’ve played, so going against them during the playoffs will be a big challenge,” Fei said. “It differs from when we played Memorial, since we just put the ball in play and made them make errors and mistakes, but I think we’ll still be fine [when playing against Wakeland].”

For some, the playoffs are the last official baseball games they’ll play for a while, including senior Jackson Pierce, who isn’t playing baseball in college.

“One of the things I want to achieve with the playoffs or before the season ends is just playing my heart out,” Pierce said. “And also just making memories with the guys and seeing how [the playoff] goes.”