Springdale Har-Ber defeated Bryant 6-2 in the Class 6A state baseball championship Thursday night at Majestic Park in Hot Springs, rallying from an early deficit with six unanswered runs across the fourth and fifth innings.
The Wildcats finished the season with a 25-10 record, claiming their first state title since 2017 and third overall in program history. Bryant, which led 2-0 after three innings, ended its season at 23-8.
Har-Ber’s offense came alive against Bryant starter Cade Austin, who had thrown five shutout innings before running into trouble in the fourth. The Wildcats loaded the bases with no outs and scored twice on a wild pitch and a sacrifice fly by Peyton Wood. They added four more runs in the fifth, capitalizing on three walks and two hit batters to break the game open.
Brooks Baxendale went 3 for 3 at the plate, finishing the tournament with a .500 batting average. Peyton Wood and Trey Taylor each drove in two runs in the championship game.
Postseason resilience
Har-Ber’s performance in the state tournament extended a pattern of late-inning rallies that defined its postseason run. The Wildcats erased deficits in both the quarterfinal and semifinal games before completing the comeback against Bryant.
“What they’ve accomplished in the last week and a half, I feel like it’s nothing short of remarkable and unbelievable,” said Har-Ber coach Dustin Helmkamp. “They came back from five down in the quarterfinals and then come back from a 3-0 deficit in the seventh inning of the semifinals. They just never stop believing.”
Helmkamp, in his first season as head coach, led Har-Ber to its first state title since the program’s back-to-back championships in 2016 and 2017. The team’s previous final appearance came in 2019, a loss to Rogers.
Har-Ber entered the state tournament as the No. 3 seed from the 6A-West Conference, behind conference champions Rogers and Bentonville. The Wildcats lost twice to Rogers during the regular season and once to Bentonville, but won four consecutive games in Hot Springs to claim the title.
Bryant, the 6A-Central Conference champion, was seeking its first state title since 2019. The Hornets scored single runs in the second and third innings off Har-Ber starter Cade Westbrook, who allowed two earned runs in 4.1 innings. Reliever Kade Smith pitched the final two frames to close out the game.
Regional context
The Class 6A title was the second state championship for a Northwest Arkansas high school this spring, following Springdale’s Har-Ber softball team, which won the 6A title in April. The softball team also defeated a team from the Little Rock area in the final — Central Arkansas Christian — at Majestic Park.
Har-Ber baseball’s win adds to a strong spring for NWA high school athletics, which also included a third-place finish by the Rogers boys tennis team at the state tournament and a top-10 finish by the Bentonville girls track team.
Thursday’s championship game drew fans from across Northwest Arkansas, with buses chartered from Springdale and Benton County. The team’s victory marked the latest in a string of successful seasons for Har-Ber athletics, which has won state titles in football, volleyball, and now baseball and softball since 2022.
For Bryant, the loss marked the end of a strong season that included a 13-1 conference record and a third consecutive trip to the state tournament. The Hornets return several key players next season, including pitcher Cade Austin and shortstop Baylor Smith.
Source: NWA Democrat Gazette
