LAVACA -- Sitting through two lightning delays just prolonged the inevitable for the Mansfield Tigers on a long Saturday afternoon before sewing up the Class 2A-West Region Tournament.
"I thought it was going to go on forever," Mansfield shortstop Peyton Martin said.
Mansfield scored five early runs and led 5-0 at the first lightning strike at Lavaca and went on to a 6-2 win against Greenland to earn the top seed from the regional at the Class 2A state tournament. Mansfield will play Horatio at 10 a.m. today at Palestine-Wheatley High School in the first round.
The state baseball tournament will cap arguably the best boys sports calendar year ever at Mansfield, and Martin took part in every success along the way.
The football Tigers went to the Class 3A semifinals for the first time ever, with Martin earning all-conference honors after catching 20 passes for 301 yards and three touchdowns on offense and recording 33 tackles and two interceptions on defense. The basketball Tigers won the 2A-4 district championship and went to the state tournament with Martin also being named all-conference after averaging 6.2 points, 3.6 rebounds and 2.6 assists per game.
The baseball Tigers are back in the state tournament for the fourth straight season with Martin starting all four years, including the last three at shortstop, and hitting .492 with 37 runs scored, 5 doubles, 5 triples and 20 stolen bases this season.
Cole Kindle is the only other senior on this year's team that has been a part of all three sports, and Martin is the only senior that's been a part of them all his entire high school career.
"It's definitely nice to go out with a good year, especially in all of those sports," Martin said. "Hopefully, we can keep it going in baseball."
Mansfield lost in the semifinals last year to Woodlawn, which has won the past three state titles.
This season, Mansfield breezed through the 2A-4 Conference and only lost nonconference games to Booneville, De Queen and Bigelow. In the district tournament, Mansfield beat Hector, 8-2, and Mountainburg, 10-0, and quickly downed Marshall, 10-0, in the first game of the regional.
In the second round, the Tigers were down, 4-1, to Life Way Christian going into the bottom of the seventh inning.
After an out, Tyler Turnipseed and Martin singled. Trey Vaughan doubled, scoring both Turnipseed and Martin to tie the game. Cooper Edwards and Winston Allison walked to load the bases, and Ethan Martin's single scored Vaughan for the winning run.
In postseason play, Peyton Martin is 7 for 15 hitting with 4 walks, a hit by pitch, and has scored 10 runs.
"This year has been the most fun I've had in my four years especially playing all the sports," Martin said. "It's been challenging. It's a lot to handle especially going from football to basketball in 24 hours."
On top of being a vital part of successful seasons in football, basketball and baseball, Martin also finished second in the pole vault at last week's Class 2A state track meet.
Martin signed in December to play baseball at the University of Arkansas at Rich Mountain.
"Growing up, it's been my favorite sport of all of them," Martin said. "It's challenging. Every level you go up, it's more challenging. It's like that for every sport, but baseball is definitely one of the harder sports to play."