CARY - Going into the 2012 Bobby Murray High School Invitational Baseball Tournament, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary, Wake County Home School Warriors coach Warren Harvey knew he had a good baseball team that deserved to compete against some of the top baseball programs in the area.

By the end of the championship game Saturday, the Warriors – with nine of its players coming from southwestern Wake – proved their coach right with a 6-5 win over tradition-rich Fuquay-Varina in the final.

“We’ve got a bunch of juniors and others who have played with each other for a couple of years, and we knew we could come in and play with the higher level schools. And we don’t get that chance as much,” Harvey said. “We’re thankful for the Murray family inviting us. It told (the Warriors), ‘You belong here,’ and we went out and got the job done.”

The Warriors (10-3) opened the tournament with a 6-4 win over a young Heritage team and followed with a 5-1 win over Millbrook. Jake Ennis, the tournament MVP, pitched the opening win and Jon Rosoff was on the mound in the win over Millbrook. William Cunningham got the start against the Bengals, with Jamey Meeker finishing and getting the win.

“We only used four pitchers in the tournament and they did well,” Harvey said. “We didn’t walk more than a handful of batters and didn’t strike out that many either, but our guys throw to contact and our defense is behind them.

“Offensively we don’t have power hitters. Jake Ennis has been our leading hitter and Chris Donaldson, our only senior, has been hitting well, but really we’ve gotten hits all up and down the lineup.”

Against the Bengals, all six Warriors hits were singles. Meeker, who started the game at shortstop, got two singles and drove in two runs, including the game-winner in the bottom of the seventh. Luke Harvey walked, went to second on a passed ball and scored on a Meeker single to right.

“We didn’t know anything about them,” said Fuquay coach Milton Senter, whose team is 9-5. “We didn’t play very well, but that’s not to take anything away from them. Tonight they played better than we did. They played well and got some timely hits.”

Right fielder Addison Braswell and centerfielder D.J. Burt had two hits each for Fuquay.

Going 2-1 in the tournament, the Bengals began by defeating Broughton 5-4 on a walk-off, two-run error as the Broughton left fielder dropped a pop fly with the bases loaded and two out. Fuquay also handled Heritage 13-0.

Athens Drive, last year’s champ, won its opener 6-0 against Wake Forest-Rolesville but lost in an extra-innings walk-off to Wakefield 5-4 on the second day. The Jaguars ended the tournament with a 5-4 win against Millbrook.

Joining Ennis on the all-tournament team were Meeker and Rosoff from Home School and Kirk Stephenson and Garrett Suggs from Fuquay. Others picked were Broughton’s Joe Bialkowski, Athens Drive’s Mark Stallings, Wake Forest-Rolesville’s Corey Brookins, Heritage’s Lee Norris, East Wake’s Austin Boyette, Wakefield’s Lee Yates, Millbrook’s Patrick LaGanke, and Person County’s Nick Wallace.