With the Bulls playing uncharacteristically lethargically and trailing 4-3 in the fourth inning of Game 1 in the best-of-three series against Southern Alamance on July 26, Powell pulled four starters.

“I don’t know if we woke up late or on the wrong side of the bed or what,” Powell said of his team. “Guys were just kind of going through the motions and just not playing very hard. So we emptied the bench.”

Powell was hoping to give his key players some rest and at the same time send a message: If they didn’t play hard, they didn’t have to play at all.

“He sat us down and said for some of us this could be the last few games that we get to play,” said Michael D’Elia, who earned tournament Most Valuable Player honors. “I guess that’s really when it hit us. That’s not what we wanted and we didn’t want to end up being second place.”

The Bulls ended up losing Game 1 7-3, but Powell’s strategy worked as the Bulls didn’t give up another run in the series.

Cary put together back-to-back shutout wins — 3-0 in the afternoon and 4-0 in the evening — to close out the one-day, best-of-three series against Southern Alamance and capture its third state title.

“It’s amazing,” said Hunter Carr, the Game 3 winning pitcher. “At the beginning of the season I was never expecting this. We came a long way.”

Carr’s lights-out performance was the key to Cary’s championship run.

After coming in with the bases loaded and one out in the first inning, Carr quickly shut down Southern Alamance, forcing a double play to end the inning. Carr then went on to give up just two hits and no runs in the next 6 2/3 innings.

“It was unbelievable,” said Powell of the 15-year-old Carr. “He threw strikes, made them put the ball in play and our defense caught all the balls and made all the plays.”

Carr was pleased as well.

“I didn’t know if I had it in me,” he said. “But once I got in there, I was doing good.”

While the performance might have surprised Carr, but not Powell.

“It’s what he’s done all year,” Powell said. “He’s a little guy with a big heart.”

After rain postponed play on Monday and Tuesday, the teams were forced to play three games on Wednesday. As the day dragged on, the tripleheader proved to be too much for Southern Alamance.

“[Southern Alamance] had guys throwing up. They had never played a doubleheader all season,” D’Elia said. “All the doubleheaders we played really conditioned us well. It just really showed the conditioning and the shape we were in.”

Cary used its depth to keep the pressure on the tired Southern Alamance team throughout the day.

“All day we threatened, we constantly threatened,” Powell said. “They just kept dodging bullets in the first game. Second game they dodged some, but they didn’t dodge them all. Third game, they didn’t dodge them all either.

“The main thing was they didn’t score,” Powell said. “If you can’t score, you can’t win and they didn’t score the last two games.”

After Game 3, rising Apex sophomore Houston Hawley, rising Cary sophomore Carr and rising Cary senior D’Elia were named to the all-tournament team.

The championship was Cary’s third in five years, the others coming in 2002 and 2004.

“Something about those even numbers,” Powell said. “Three times for one program. They’ve only had six championships and we’ve won half of them. It’s a testament to this area and this program and the support that we get from the community and the American Legion.”