SANFORD - When Fuquay-Varina's junior varsity team walked off the field after a Thursday night at Lee County High School, there were no heads hanging.

The JV Bengals had just pushed their varsity counterparts to the limit before falling by the 10-8 score in the CCSSL semifinals.

Their coach, Neil Eichhorn, was not only proud with his team's performance in the contest, but in the entire tournament.

His team took out Smithfield-Selma and Apex on consecutive nights before being paired against the older Bengals.

"These guys did something really special," Eichhorn said. "If we would've gotten by (varsity), we would have pieced together the pitching and we would've won the whole thing. And you're talking about a JV team who hasn't rolled over to their junior year."

Varsity Fuquay coach Milton Senter said he wasn't surprised the JV Bengals went back-and-forth with his team. But he was caught a little off-guard by how far the JV Bengals advanced.

"This was not part of the expectation," Senter said. "Honestly, it wasn't something that I looked forward to. I'm tickled to death that they were here, but it's one of those trap games. If I lose, the young upstarts beat the older team and if we win, we're supposed to win."

The two teams treated the CCSSL semifinal as if it was a rivalry game.

The varsity Bengals went up 2-0 after the first inning, but with the bases loaded in the second inning, the JV Bengals turned a 4-6-3 triple play off a line drive out, doubling off runners at second and first base.

Soon, the JV Bengals found themselves leading 7-4 thanks to a four-run fourth inning.

But the varsity answered with two runs in the top of the fifth, sixth and seventh inning to take a 10-8 lead going into the final half-inning. The JV Bengals loaded the bases in the bottom of the seventh, but could not scrape together a run.

"They almost did the unthinkable," Eichhorn said. "It's good for the program to see how many good players are out here."