It was 20 years ago this summer that the Boerne High baseball team won its one and only state championship.
The Greyhounds defeated Denton Ryan for the 4A state championship in June of 2004 at Dell Diamond Stadium in Round Rock.
Boerne won two state championships that school year, the first coming that fall when the Boerne boys cross country squad claimed the 2003 state title, the school’s and the district’s first team state championship.
(The BHS cross country team made it back-to-back state championships during the next school year when they also snagged the 2004 state title in the fall.)
Boerne’s playoff run was remarkable that season and featured a program-defining victory over Calallen in the regional finals.
The Greyhounds had pretty much breezed through the postseason but the series with the Wildcats was a wild and memorable one. Calallen had been to the regional finals 11 of the past 13 seasons going into 2004 and was the No. 1 4A team in the state going into the series.
Getting past Calallen
Game 1 between Boerne and Calallen was at Wolff Stadium before 2,200 fans on a Friday night and it turned into a classic that went 11 innings before the Greyhounds prevailed, 2-1.
Those in attendance will remember that Bradley Suttle stole home for Boerne to give them the win.
In the bottom of the 11th and with the score tied at 1-1, Suttle singled, moved to second on a fielder’s choice and then stole third.
Suttle noticed that Calallen pitcher Nathaniel Harris had a slow delivery and told BHS coach Chuck Foster when he was at third base that he felt he could steal home.
Conrad Srp came up to bat for the Hounds with Suttle at third and had a 2-1 count. Foster gave Srp the take sign, which meant he was supposed to not swing at the next pitch and allow Suttle to make his move towards the plate.
Harris started his delivery and Suttle broke for home, but Srp ended up trying to bunt the ball like a squeeze play, but that wasn’t what Foster called.
While Srp later said he misread the signal, it ended up benefitting the Hounds because Srp reached for the bunt and apparently shielded Calallen catcher Luke McCall, at least initially, from noticing that Suttle was breaking for the plate.
Whatever the reason, McCall didn’t field the ball cleanly and it bounced away from him and Suttle was safe, drawing the headline “Suttle steals home.”
Suttle, who was recently inducted into the Boerne ISD Athletic Hall of Honor, recounted the story at his induction ceremony a few years ago.
Because of the steal of home, Boerne took Game 1, but the Wildcats evened the series Saturday in Robstown, 13-10, despite a 6-RBI performance from Russell Moldenhauer, which included a grand slam.
The series went to Game 3 in Robstown and Boerne’s No. 3 pitcher Austin Jones was handed the rock. Jones had a shaky start and gave up a home run to A&M signee Jordan Chambliss that might still be flying around the Corpus Christi area to this day.
The Chambliss HR cleared the stadium above the lights and Boerne was down 2-0 in the first inning but Jones, only a sophomore, settled down and only gave up one more run and one more hit the rest of the way.
Jones was an off-speed/ junk ball pitcher and kept the Wildcats off balance after that first inning.
Boerne answered with a strong half of the inning and scored 7 runs in the bottom of the first. The Hounds ended up winning the game via run rule, 15-3, in five frames to clinch their first and only ticket to the state tournament.
On a side note, Calallen, the No. 1 team in the state, finished the year with four losses and all four came to Boerne after the Hounds defeated them twice in the regional finals and twice at a tournament earlier in the season.
The Wildcats did win it all next year and they defeated Suttle, Moldenhauer and Foster, and the rest of the Boerne team in the regional finals on their way to the title.
State Tournament
In the state tournament, Boerne played Port Neches- Groves before 5,200 fans and dominated the Indians, 4-0.
Suttle, who later played at the University of Texas before being drafted by the New York Yankees, pitched and won the game 4-0.
Suttle ended the year undefeated from the mound at 11-0 and only gave up two hits and two walks in that state semis game.
Boerne’s win against PN-G advanced them to the state finals the next day against Denton Ryan before 7,000 fans.
The Raiders had a firstround MLB draft pick on their roster and it was tight early in the championship game.
On the mound, BHS started sophomore Russell Moldenhauer, who himself was drafted by an MLB team after high school (Angels), but Moldenhauer chose to attend UT as well and was a teammate of Suttle’s with the Longhorns.
Denton Ryan scored its only run of the game in the third and had three hits in the inning, but those three hits would be the Raiders’ only hits of the contest after Moldenhauer and the defense shut them down.
Boerne answered with five runs over the fourth and fifth innings to get its five runs and earn the 5-1 win.
Before the seventh inning, BHS coach Chuck Foster uttered four words to his team before they took the field.
“Make the magic happen,” Foster shouted twice to his players as he pounded his fist into his palm.
They did and secured the title and the celebration began. It continued all summer and there was a parade for the team a few days later.
Suttle, Moldenhauer, Ray Martinez, Taylor Spalla and Kevin Rawls were named to the all-tournament team that year and Moldenhauer was voted tournament MVP.
The 2004 team was recently inducted into the BISD Athletic Hall of Honor, while Suttle and Moldenhauer have also been inducted individually as well.
Those two team state championships that 200304 school year by the BHS cross country and baseball teams were the start of something special over the next few seasons.
As mentioned, cross country won state to start the 2004 school year, then boys soccer won it in 2006, followed by softball in 2007 for five team titles in five years in four different sports.
BISD added another high school a few years later to split its talent pool and Boerne High went 14 years before they won another team title.
The Greyhounds had individual state champions in track and tennis during that time, but that 2007 softball state championship was their last in a team sport until soccer did it in 2021 and then repeated in 2022.
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